So…what is this “room by hour” everyone’s talking about?
“Freedom is being you, without anyone’s permission.”
Most of the society, even though we all preach the exact opposite, tends to generally “Judge a book by its cover”, at least on a temporary basis. While many believe in reserving their judgement for a post experience period, taking into considerations all the aspects there are people who are out there too quick to judge -there is this stigma attached with couples or people who are looking for a place for short stay. Let’s be honest here, if you and your friend got stuck up in a remote city because the convention you planned to attend got cancelled and you need somewhere to stay before you can leave, you would probably prefer visiting a place or just hanging around cafes and restaurants rather than going and booking a room for few hours, regardless of how tired you are.
Even if you decide to dare yourself to go and ask for a room for a couple of hours, we all know what’s going to happen- YOU ARE GOING TO GET JUDGED. There you go! No one’s going to understand that maybe you are having an emergency visit – to meet a sick relative in hospital, had an interview which got delayed, had to a meeting which was horrendously timed, bad weather, missed your flight etc. Hence it gets very difficult for someone to go ahead and book a room on the basis of their priority and comfort when it comes to the constraint of time. Let us just assume you’ve been travelling overnight and you just want a room to freshen up before your meeting the next day.
Mehran, a traveller and engineer said “Has happened to me a million times, you are on a chain of business trips, you get to a city early in the morning and have not slept well the previous night since you had to wake up early to get to the airport, you have your meeting before noon and your return flight is around midnight, you can either book a room for an entire night and pay extra, wander the dity aimlessly and feeling like crap or book a room for several hours, have a nap, a shower, stash your bags, head out to see the sights for a couple of hours, return, take your stuff and take a cab to the airport.
This is just one scenario but one that has plagued me more than I can remember.”
“Room by hour”
is a great service initiated to cater this problem faced by hundreds of travellers. It not only caters to their need of a short stay but also makes sure they are accommodated in a proper, safe and comfortable environment.
These companies providing “Room by Hour” services are challenging the general norm for booking hotels and accommodation that is fixed check-in and check-out time and full-day bookings. This tradition has been challenged by these innovative service providers who believe in catering the needs of customers first on the basis of their priorities and comfort rather than following the ‘socially’ accepted ways of travelling and accommodation. They serve as great assets to travellers in terms of flexibility of timings, economic fairness (they don’t have to pay for the entire day but only for a couple of hours) and comfort. They enable travellers to go and take rest or relax for a couple of hours in a comfortable environment rather than hunting for lounges or resting at unsettling and uncomfortable places like stations and bus stop for a few hours.
“Room by hour” concept has gotten a bad rap over the years since stereo typically they are assumed to be used for unsavory activities. Looking at the business perspective this concept isn’t bad at all since it saves the hotels from losing revenue because of unbooked rooms. Luxury hotels and hospitality services do acknowledge this fact since they have registered themselves with companies like BreviStay, byHours, and Getaroom.com etc. They don’t acknowledge this and like to keep quiet about this service is for obvious reasons. “Luxury hotels, and the range of hotels on our site, aren’t renting by the hour. But what a lot of hotels are doing that they don’t necessarily advertise, is allowing people to come in and rent a room by the day for a few hours,” Getaroom.com co-founder Bob Diener told Maxim. Start-ups like BreviStay have the main aim of making the service easily available to travellers and visitors. “How they’re packaging it these days is by using deals that let you use the room, the gym, and the pool. But what many people don’t know is that looking for secret rates is a better way to get a lower room rate.”
“Room by hour” service providers are not only an important development in the community of travellers but are also great assets to people seeking accommodation. These companies are bringing a very necessary revolution in the hospitality business by the traveller and user friendly aspect of their service. It’s not a long way till their usefulness and productiveness is recognised by the majority population.
