So you decided the destination for your beach holiday, and now you want to move on with selecting a nice beach hotel that fits your preferences. There are a number of ways that can help you select your hotel, and combining them will most likely give you the best chances of a successful result.
Personal experiences
The easiest way to know whether a hotel will meet your needs, is obviously if you have first hand experience of the hotel yourself. Overall, you will have a pretty good idea of what to expect, you know the location, the surroundings, the room sizes, the facilities, and you might even know some of the staff and repeat customers from your last visit.
Limitations
- Some features like hotel decor, management, and maintenance change over time
- Your memory may deceive you, and you could have been blindly in love last time around
- Surroundings change over time – favorite hang-outs disappear, prices explode, atmospheres change, visitor profiles develop etc.
- Your previous hotel is not what you want now – now you can remove 1 hotel from the 100s of choices
Reccommendations from family and friends
It is great to get advice from friends and family who know the destination you are heading for, and which hotel you should stay at. Their experiences will help you in many ways, other than choosing the hotel. They will teach you the “do’s and dont’s” of a destination, which activities to try, where to get a good meal, and which beach to chill at.
Limitations
- Your Uncle Carlos’ idea of what a good hotel is might not be the same as yours, and you probably don’t share the same passions
- Your Uncle Carlos might also not know you and your preferences as well, as he thinks he does
- Things changed since Uncle Carlos’ visit
- Personal encounters, incidents, and a bunch of more or less random events affect the overall perception – it only takes one rude comment by a stressed waiter or a nice gesture from a receptionist to determine whether a hotel will be recommended or not
Customer reviews
Reviews on any bought service or item can now be found online. Who better to advise you than fellow tourists who have tried and tested the product? This is great way to find up to date, user-generated information about a hotel and get a quick overview of its perceived value. All major online booking sites like Agoda, Hotels, Booking, Expedia etc. feature customer reviews of offered hotels. Tripadvisor is perhaps the best known and most trusted hotel review site, and the importance of good customer reviews for hoteliers cannot be underestimated.
Limitations
- Many customers only leave reviews of services or products where they have had an experience out of the ordinary. This means that many reviews are either very good or very bad, and thus not necessarily representative of the common experience. Actually, reading through the reviews will often leave you perplexed if the reviews are too polarized. Our suggestion is to look at the overall scores, and take the single reviews with a grain of sand.
- There has always been trust issues related to reviews. Are the reviewers really customers or could they be affiliated with the hotel in some way? Have the reviewers been bribed somehow? Could malicious competitors skew the review scores by posting bad reviews? The less reviews, the higher the risk of the overall scores being skewed.
- Reviewers might have entirely different standards, understandings of services, and expectations compared to your own. What one reviewers sees as extraordinary service, another reviewer interprets as overly intruding staff.
Expert recommendations
A good travel agency or advisor will be able to understand your needs and point you in the right direction. They will most likely have feedback from previous clients going to the destination in question, and can seek extra information directly from the accommodation suppliers. If the travel expert is specialized in the region you wish to visit, they can likewise give you tips beyond the choice of accommodation.
Limitations
- If you are an experienced traveler, chances are you know more about the destination than your travel agent.
- Would travel agents try to satisfy their accommodation suppliers or reach sales targets by sending you to a specific hotel rather than help you find the ideal hotel for you?
- Travel agencies tend to feature and book the same hotels at a given destination, so whether this is your preference or not, you might end up in a “national bubble” of fellow country-men and women.
We’re here, now what? – not selecting beforehand
Now this option suits some and definitely doesn’s suit others. You can simply choose to go to your selected destination, and see what you can find once you are there. This saves you the time of looking for a hotel beforehand, and you can actually check out the hotel yourself on-site before you commit to staying anywhere. There is a good chance you will be able to find small quirky hotels that are not available for online bookings. We recommend that you know which area you want to stay in, perhaps aided by a guidebook. Go to that area, leave your bags at a restaurant and walk around to find your hotel. Simple – if you are flexible.
Limitations
- Be careful if it’s high season – everything could be fully booked, and you might end up either having to spend the night at an overpriced room or in whatever is left from the most basic dorm room to the luxury suite. Plan B, buy a tent. Plan C, find a friendly local resident. Plan D, find a friendly bench. Plan E, don’t sleep – jetlag will mess with your sleep anyway.
- If this is your once in a lifetime overseas 2-week travel holiday with your spouse and kids or (even worse) your honeymoon trip, you might not want to leave too many things to chance for the sake of keeping your marital status.
- If you are the kind of tourist that travels to relax and rejuvenate, then save yourself a dose of anxiousness by having your trip well-organized.
Very good setup of the pros and cons related to finding your ideal Beach hotel.
I’m definitely one of those who wih to relax, unwind & rejuvenate so planning and booking before I set off! Beach ha to be beautiful with no people 😉
If you don’t want the hassle of finding accommodation on the spot, and don’t want to risk your holiday being spent on the only lousy hotel option available, then that’s certainly the way to do it, Inge. Especially if you travel in the high season. Some things are a little easier in the low season, as you can see in our previous post.
[…] don’t even have a website. This means that you actually have to go to the island first to select your accommodation – a risk not so many travelers are willing to take, unless of course they have read a […]
My sister and I are going on a vacation and need to find a hotel. I appreciate the information about how when looking at reviews you should look at the overall scores. Something else to consider is to get a hotel that has all the amenities you need.
I like how you say that people you know will be able to tell you what you should do at a destination in addition to being able to help you find the right hotel. My husband and I want to go on a vacation, and we need somewhere to stay at. Your tips should really help us find some good lodgings.
There really are a surprising number of factors you can take into consideration when choosing a hotel to stay at. One of the ones I like that the article brings up is recommendations from friends and family. True you may not share the same idea of what a “perfect” hotel is, but you can rely on them to sleep in a clean, safe hotel, giving you a place to at least start your search.
I like that you talked about how you can consider the reviews of the fellow tourists who have visited the hotel that you’re considering. My husband and I are going to celebrate our 10th-year wedding anniversary, and we’re looking for a beach hotel that we can rent. It’s important for us to make sure that we’ll find a location that we can trust to provide us the best services. The reviews of other people about the hotel that we will consider will surely help us to make an informed decision. Thanks for sharing your tips!
Very good setup of the pros and cons related to finding your ideal Beach hotel.
Excellent post. I want to thank you for this informative read; I really appreciate sharing this great post. Keep up your work.
I do like that you suggested checking the online reviews of the hotel that you’re interested in to make sure that you can get an overview of what other people have to say about them. My husband and I are planning to stay in a hotel for a week to celebrate our wedding anniversary. We want to make sure that we’ll have a memorable and special vacation, so we’d like to find a hotel that has a lot of happy clients in the past.
I like that you pointed out that you can find get a quick overview of the hotel that you’re interested in by checking reviews about them. My husband and I are planning to have a luxurious vacation next month, so we’re looking for a rental place. We’d like to make sure that we’ll have a hassle-free vacation, so it’s important for us to find a rental place that has no record of complaints and has more positive reviews than the negative ones. Thanks!
It sure was nice when you said that you must ask for advice from your family and friends who might have had an experienced in staying in a hotel where you’re going to. My husband and I are planning to stay in a hotel for a week to have some time off. We want to make sure that we can maintain a good communication with our children, so we’re looking for a hotel that offers Wi-Fi services. Since we heard that my mother stayed in a hotel for more than 2 weeks, maybe, I can ask for some tips from her.
Everyone is crazy about staying close to the beach. There is always a dearth of good beach hotels. It is nice that you have enumerated some useful tips to select the right beach hotel. While recommendations from relatives and friends do help, nothing is as good as your own research and personal experience.
It is a very interesting post with great stuff. It is very important to get the best hotel for your memorable trip. Keep sharing content like this.
Nice Blog!! The content you have shared on your website
is very elaborative and informative. Thanks a lot for sharing such a great piece of knowledge with us
This weekend I’ll be spending my vacation leave at Virginia Beach. However, since I’ve decided last minute, I haven’t found any hotels to stay in yet. Good thing I’ve read your article on the tips in looking for a nice beach hotel. I’ll definitely take note of what you said about checking the customer reviews because it is how I can get a quick overview of the service or product they bought.
I appreciate the advice about knowing the limitations of the hotel. My wife and I want to vacation near a beach to get away from the snow. We’ll find a hotel with a good price to enjoy.
I want to find a place to stay for a vacation with my family. I can see how asking people for their personal experiences with certain places would be a good way to find one that is comfortable! That way, I can ensure that it’s a good place for my family to stay at during our trip.
Thank you for explaining that you should look at customer reviews to get a good overview of the hotel. I’ve been wondering how to find a good one to stay at next month. I’ll have to try this out, especially your advice to check the ones during a similar time of year.
My older sister and I want to take a trip with our husbands to a beachfront hotel and relax for a week. It’s good to know that the experiences of your friends and family can help you learn more about a hotel and destination. We’ll have to ask people we trust for advice on beach vacations so we can find a wonderful hotel to book for our trip.
I appreciate that you explained how receiving recommendations from loved ones who are familiar with your intended trip and the best hotels to stay at is a terrific idea. For a week of vacation, my husband and I intend to stay in a hotel. We are looking for a hotel that welcomes pets since we want to make sure we can stay in excellent communication with our kids. Maybe I can ask my sister for advice as we’ve heard that she spent more than two weeks in a hotel.