Choosing a hotel for your next getaway requires either familiarity with the location or a lot of research skills. Your hotel will serve as your base during your trip, after all, so it’s only prudent to closely examine your accommodation options before booking. While your activities might take you away from your hotel room for most of the day, you’ll still be able to appreciate the level of comfort and peace of mind that your choice of accommodation will provide you throughout your trip.
Fortunately, the internet has simplified the process of shopping for hotels and booking accommodations. Still, smart consumers know that they should look beyond the surface level when evaluating their hotel options. By knowing exactly what they like and researching their options well, they can pick a hotel that can meet all their needs and wants. If you want to book a hotel that offers the same experience, you need to be discriminating when it comes to your choices. Here are some of the factors that you should consider when choosing where to stay:
Location and Nearby Attractions
Staying in a location away from the crowds may be ideal for people who want privacy. That said, it’s not exactly a wise move to explore a remote and unfamiliar location for your holiday, especially if you’re travelling for the first time on your own.
Unless you’re planning to spend a good portion of your holiday in a safe and quiet location like Singapore, factors such as security, accessibility, and location should be your top priorities. Choosing a base of operation near a city centre, for example, will make it much easier to see what the said city has to offer.
Booking an accommodation option near transportation hubs is an ideal option if you want to go sightseeing during your stay. It’s a wise choice to pick hotels near Changi airport if you want your holiday to be close to urban amenities and attractions or if you need to catch a flight at an inconvenient hour. These places are designed with travellers in mind, and they have establishments that cater to and offer a safe space to tourists at any time of the day or night.
House Rules and Hotel Ambience
Even hotels located in the same section of a city can still be quite different from each other. They may attract people from different demographics, offer different types of security features, enforce certain rules for receiving visitors, or even have different standards when it comes to in-room amenities. You can get a good feel for these sorts of things by looking at the kinds of guests that a particular hotel often attracts.
You should also check if the hotel’s house rules are agreeable for you. For example, some hotels have flexible check-in while others have stricter policies. Some hotels, especially gender-specific ones, might also prohibit outside guests from entering rooms.
Amenities and Features
How much are you willing to spend on your accommodation? Based on that amount, what amenities are you expecting to be able to use for free during your stay?
Perhaps you’re willing to spend extra to treat yourself, or maybe you’re willing to forgo a few bells and whistles so you can stick to your budget. If you’re the former, then you should make sure that you’re getting your money’s worth with your hotel. If you belong to the latter, you need to narrow down your search by specifying your budget range and having a clear and realistic idea of what you want your hotel to provide you at that price.
Pricing, Cancellation Policies, and the Fine Print
After minutes or even hours of searching, perhaps you’ve found a hotel that checks all the boxes, including the price range. It can be extra enticing to book a room at this point, but read the fine print first before you finalise your booking.
Thoroughly assess the hotel’s and the booking platform’s terms and conditions regarding their policies for cancellations, no-shows, taxes, and add-on services. Also, only choose hotels that are transparent with your payments and have good cancellation policies. You should also check for information on the hotel’s capacity to accommodate potential schedule changes, which might come in handy in case anything unexpected happens during your stay.
Picking Hotels Is a Balancing Act
Choosing a hotel is not easy, especially if you need to balance your needs with your budget. However, if you know your priorities when choosing an accommodation, you’ll find it much easier to find hotels that can provide you with the experience you expect from your holiday. Be sure to keep these points in mind when shopping for a holiday accommodation. By doing so, you can find the one that best suits you which, in turn, will help you achieve your purpose for travelling.
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Source: Vietnam Insider