MICRO-STAY - AN HOURLY HOTEL BOOKING

Micro-stay - an hourly hotel booking option by hourlyrooms.co.in

Are you on a long leisure travel or business travel and like to use a hotel facility just for a few hours? Hourly rooms offers micro-stay booking in India with the option to book hotels for a few hours and pay according to the hourly rate. 

How many times you wished you could use a decent hotel for a few hours just to take a shower or relax a bit before you continue your journey? Or, haven't you come across situation where you have a layover in the airport and wished to have a nap? I have been to such situation a lot of times. I frequently travel to Bangalore for blogger meets and also to meet some of the clients of my digital marketing agency. I usually take an overnight train or bus and reach Bangalore by morning. I have to check-in to a hotel just for taking a shower and refresh myself and then checkout by noon since most hotels have a 11~12 noon checkout policy. It would have been ideal if I could stay in the hotel for 5-6 hours from morning till the time of my return train without having to pay for 2 full nights.

Thanks to Hourly rooms for introducing hourly hotel packages. With their new micro-stay program, hotels can allow transit travelers, roadies and day trippers to check-in, refresh and check-out and most importantly, pay only for the few hours they used the facilities. With the new hourly rate program introduced by www.Hourlyrooms.co.in, guests can book hotel rooms for just a few hours, starting from 3 hours to 12 hours and pay accordingly. In addition to budget hotels and guest houses, even premium hotels are now adopting this kind of micro-stay booking.

 

What is micro-stay?

Micro-stay is the hotel facility available for a short time, for a few hours up to half a day. Instead of booking a hotel room for the full day/night, travelers and day trippers can use the hotel facility for a few hours and pay only part of the daily room tariff. The micro-stay concept became popular in Europe in 2008 during the economic downtime. Eventually, micro-stay concept spread to USA and parts of south-east Asia. Until recently, Indian hotels turned a blind eye towards the micro-stay concept for business reasons. However, the Indian hospitality business scenario is changing as more and more Indian travelers are looking for budget travel options.

With changing market dynamics, including online bookings and real-time reviews, hotels too must change, says Adarsh Shetty, president of AHAR, the Indian Hotel and Restaurant Association. "Micro-stays are a reflection and a part of that change."

How Hourly rooms is different?

Hourly rooms is one of the first travel booking platform which offered micro-stay booking option in India. Guests can o book hotel rooms in packs of 3, 6 and 12 hours. In less than 2 years, the website has seen 14,000 micro-stay bookings at star hotels across 20 cities in India.

Some of the premium hotels offering the micro-stay option include Park properties, Taj group of hotels, Courtyard by Marriott and many more.

"In a price-sensitive market, if we can resell the same room in a same-day cycle and double our revenue, then why not," says Sujith Chandrasekharan, director of rooms and the man leading the micro-stay initiative at Park properties across Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Goa and Navi Mumbai.

There are 5-star hotels like Taj Lands End, Mumbai which have adapted the micro-stay model on its own without any new-age aggregators involved. Taj Land's End now offers four-hour stays between 9 am and 6 pm.

"Given today's hectic work schedules, people find it difficult to plan holidays in advance. Checking into a hotel, even in their own city, can provide a break from the routine. Since these guests may not necessarily want to rent the room for an entire night, we came up with the micro-stay option," says Zal Tarapore, director of rooms at Taj Lands End.

Courtyard by Marriott in Gurgaon and Sahara Star in Mumbai both introduced micro-stay options three years ago too, responding to the many short-stay inquiries they received from business travellers.

 

How micro-stay booking works with Hourlyrooms.co.in?

This website is no different from other travel booking sites like TripAdvisor or Expedia, except that it helps you save money by allowing you to book micro-stay in hotels of your choice.

 

 

In a nut shell - What are micro-stays?

 

Instead of traditional 12 noon check-out or 24-hour check-in-check-out cycle, micro-stays allow travellers to book hotel rooms for fewer hours and pay accordingly.

 

Micro-stays first become popular in Europe during the economic downturn of 2008, and then spread to the US and south-east Asia. It has started gaining momentum in India only recently. Here, hotels ranging from budget to boutique and five-stars such as Courtyard by Marriott in Gurgaon and Sahara Star in Mumbai have begun to offer the option over the past three years. Online booking platforms and apps such as Stay Uncle, 6 Hourly, Hourly rooms and HotelsAroundYou have started acting as aggregators and partnering with hotels to offer packages in cities across the country.

 

There are various options available for micro-stays. Hourly rooms offers slots of 3 hour, 6 hour and 9 hour. Some of the aggregators and hotels refuse to entertain unmarried couples for micro-stay programs due to various concerns.

 

Check-out the micro-stay booking at hourlyrooms.co.in