As rates decline, hotels upping surcharges

March 18, 2010 |

Despite a forecast for a continued decline in hotel rates in 2010, hoteliers will become more aggressive in collecting fees and surcharges this year, some of which are proving difficult to bundle into negotiated rates, according to New York University Tisch Center associate professor Bjorn Hanson.

Speaking today at the Business Travel News/National Business Travel Association Strategic Travel Symposium in New York, Hanson projected an increase in total collected fees and surcharges by U.S. hotel companies this year compared with 2009. The total, now well over a billion dollars, has steadily increased over the past decade.

Fees pose a budgeting problem for travel buyers because they are difficult to anticipate and vary even among hotels under the same brand flag, Hanson said.

"You could stay at a Marriott, Starwood or Hilton hotel one night, and stay at a different Marriott, Starwood or Hilton hotel the next night, and the fees and surcharges will be different," he said. "These are hotel by hotel, and they also come and go."

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