No Frills

During the new contract, my accommodation in London is courtesy of Travelodge, also known as “The RyanAir of hotels” – well, in my book anyway. They’re definitely “No Frills”, but as a room/bed for the night they’re serviceable.

In this case, they’re also at least £25 cheaper per night – so yes, £100 per week – than their closest competition. And in this contract, where the day-rate is being squeezed so hard it’s almost screaming, that £25 per day/night is a significant difference.

It’s interesting to see over the years (He said, sounding like a right old fart) how the Travelodge rooms and facilities have changed.

Back in October 2006, for example, I had a big rant about Travelodges based on the one in Cambridge which was (and probably still is) a total piss-take. (And yes, if you look around on that month you’ll also see I swore never to stay in one long-term again. Ah well.)  At that time, the Travelodge was charging obscene rates for phone calls and dial-up internet connections.

Now, there’s no phone at all in the rooms. I assume they realised there was no real money any more in having landline phones when ‘everyone’ has a mobile, and ‘all’ laptops have a wireless network capability. There’s wireless internet (in this case through Spectrum Wifi) for a fee which is fucking extortionate if you’re there for one or two nights, but works out pretty well if you know you’re there for a month. (Something like £10 for 24 hours, but £30 for a month).

And of course you still pay for breakfast – although if you book online it’s got something like a 20% discount on that too.

I still think that to some degree Travelodge and the like are extortionate – if you think there’s 150 rooms (give or take) in just this one Travelodge, and people are paying at least £60 per night, that’s a pretty good figure per week. Assuming 75% occupancy, that’s at least £47,000 per week, excluding extras for food, drink and internet access.  But at the same time there’s obviously the demand there, so why not charge for it?