High traffic dates- minimum night stay or higher rate?

[JunieBJones (JBJ)]

When in Rome.
If you are in a place that has weekend rates then sobeit. I cannot do that here. If everyone else did, then I would.

 

[egoodell]

We keep the same prices year round & I do have 2 night minimums most of the time on the weekends and 3 on holidays. By the way my rates did go up this year and we are ahead of last year. As our occupancy has increased so has the minimum stays. I use SI, but many of the other programs don't allow you to set individual minimums by room, only by date. Keeping a waiting list for one nighters helps to fill last minute rooms or a Sat the another guest booked a Thurs-Friday for example. One thing I won't do is discount the rooms. For one thing I feel that we have already have a good value, Second it keeps my life simple & it doesnt train your guest to expect a discount..

We do not discount etiher. But Iwork during the week at the local university so again we don't have to worry about health care or the mortgage because of that. As soon as the other wing is built and we have a firm grip on when the recession will stop dropping I'll be able to quit and we may sing a different tune.
But we also offer too many high end amenities for me to discount. And I'm not about to remove amenities for a discount. Period.
We are still getting good bookings ahead of last year but I think it's beause of our proximity to DC where many are government workers and their only risk is probably no raise this year and they are traveling more locally for long weekends.
Riki