Hotel Phone Numbers (and other lodging too)

One of the unique things about AllStays.com is that we publish the direct phone numbers for hotels. You won't find a real hotel phone number on other travel websites like Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, TripAdvisor, Priceline, Hotwire...well we could go on and on listing every website that doesn't provide real contact information. Why? Well they want you to book with them so they make a commission or fee. No one makes any money if you call the hotel direct. And we don't either. But sometimes it's better for you. You eliminate the middle man and possibly save money. You know your reservation is at the hotel front desk and not stuck in cyberspace. You may get a better room. (We've booked deep discount rates ourselves and then have been treated like a contagious disease at the front desk. And then your view is of a concrete wall. We know it happens and it may look bad for the hotel as well but that is business today.)

Why list hotel phone numbers? Because it's useful information. Many of the things we do cost us money but give you better and more useful information. You may get better information calling the front desk of a hotel in Chicago than an operator in New Delhi, India. Say you forgot to print and take your confirmation email from that corporate website. Now you don't have the phone number for the hotel to get directions, find out where to park or tell them you are arriving late. We have the phone number in easy to find, fast loading text pages for each city.

All that being said, we are amazed at how hard some hotels, B&Bs, and campgrounds make it to find the phone number or address on their own site. It should be somewhere in plain text on every page of a website. But it's very often not on the main page at all. You have to find a "contact" page to get a phone number. Once in a while, we can't find it anywhere on a website at all! That is like a business with it's doors locked all the time and then they wonder why no one comes inside. The city, state and/or country should always be included with the phone number on all pages as well. There are many towns and hotels with the same name in the world. Some bed and breakfasts don't want their address known. Then you look over their website and you can't even find what state they are located in. A graphic with palm trees doesn't narrow it down much. Multimedia sites are always poorly designed and hard to use, so the number is buried when you are in a hurry to find it. And the travelers with cell phones or pda devices may not be able to get to it at all.

The other major issue is websites that only publish a toll free number. The do not list a local area code long distance number at all. Apparently they do not want any visitors from outside of their own country. Toll free numbers are hard to use, if they can be used at all in many parts of the world. And for a USA example, today's falling dollar leads to bargains for international travelers. But they will go to the hotel that makes it easy for them to contact and make a reservation. We work hard to find and publish the direct phone number, not the toll free numbers, for this reason.

We once had a bed and breakfast tell us that they didn't want their address or phone number listed. We asked why and "there are some nuts out there" was the reply.

Lodging places need to realize that not everyone in the world knows where they are and what their phone number is. Owners and employees may have it memorized but know one else does.