Marketplace
Tracking Travel by B. O'Brian
A Deal on a Hotel Room is a Phone Call Away
Consolidators who once booked cheap air fares are moving into the over built hotel industry.
When widespread fare discounting imperiled profits. Robert Diener switched his expertise from airlines to hotels and founded Hotel Reservations network. "is's in essence the same concept." says Mr. Diener. "We either contract or buy up huge blocks of rooms and get rates lower than what individuals can find."
Like airlines, hotels frequently offer myriad prices and a sliding scale of discounts. "If you call a hotel you can get 20 different rates," says Mr. Diener, president of Dallas based HRN. "It's like being in a Middle Eastern market. They sell everything under the sun, but there's no set price." Consolidators, however, offer set prices for lower and upper-end rooms in business centers. 365 days a year.
HRN books rooms in 20 U.S. cities, London and Paris and is looking to expand to other major European cities this year. The company says its hotels don't like their names publicized, but the network can offer first-class hotels in Manhattan with room rates as low as $69 and three and four-star hotels in San Francisco for nearly the same price.