It may raise mistrust in your mind if somebody
walk in to your reception asks for a room for
few hours. But it should not be misapprehend
for any romantic purposes. There are many
business travellers and pilgrims seeking for a room
for few hours to meet their travel needs.
Micro stay
The concept of providing hotel rooms on
hourly basis is called micro stay, this may also
be called as day stay, hourly stay, day used stay
and capsule stay. This concept is well accepted
and overwhelmed at western counties and USA.
This concept is also getting popular in countries
like India, China, Indonesia, Canada and also
expected to get popular in geographically bigger
countries and developing nations.
Suites for business travellers & pilgrims in India
This concept works better for the business travellers who travels
same day back to the starting destinations. These travellers normally
travel to the metros, Tier II or Tier III cities in India for a few hours
meeting. Any hotels located near airport or at business hubs can
offer these facilities to the travellers who are willing to spend few
hours to freshen up before going for meeting or to pilgrims for few
hours to rest before they go for next Dharsan. These guests are
happy to get the star category hotel rooms at an affordable price
instead of waiting in an airport or any other places by not taking
rooms because it is expensive for few hours stay.
Few hotel sites are offering this facility internationally. SliceRooms.
com is the hotel website emerging in India to offer this service to
cater to the business travel segment and pilgrims
segment. These rooms are normally sold at
discounted and competitive affordable price from
the rack rate. These hotels or these rooms at time
act as an alternate for their office. Many hotels in
Europe and USA follow this concept to increase
their room revenue.
Good concept for hotels to increase
revenue
A lot of hotel research scholars and analysts
mention that hotels need many ways to boost
their revenue in order to achieve their bottom line
which is ever declining hence they have started
renting their rooms two times which are called
micro stay.
Maha, one of the top executives of a media firm
takes early morning flights to Mumbai to meet with
clients or some time to conduct interviews. She doesn’t take rooms
often because of the cost of the room which is quiet expensive, and
she has expressed her gratitude on the micro stay concept. And she
schedules her meetings mid morning so that she can take a nap, and
use well cleaned rest rooms before go for a meeting.
Also a V P Operation of one of the leading five star hotel chains
in India says, “Customers are given the option to rent out for few
hours while transiting and this will lead to increase in top line of the
hotel and bottom line as well.”
Powerful sales tool for hotels
This is definitely one of the powerful sales tools for hotels as they
can attract more customers by selling rooms two times in a day.
It enables them to increase their room
revenue. Hotels can offer minimum of
two hours and maximum of eight hours,
by charging extra for each hour stayed. If
customer wants to stay more than 8 hours
then it is sold as full day.
All hospitality consultants and GMs of
the hotel who are trying hard to increase
their sales, micro stay is one of the best and
powerful sales tools for hotels to increase
their revenue. It is observed that in Europe
and some of the destinations in the US
nearly 40% of bookings are last minute
check-ins for an appropriate duration of
less than six hours.
Hotels have understood the importance
of this tool and have started offering micro
stay.
The views expressed within this column are the opinion
of the author, and may not necessarily be endorsed by
the publication.