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How Can Tourists Reduce the Cost of Hotel Accommodation?

5 Strategies to Reduce the Cost of Hotel Accommodation

Many tourists worry to manage travel costs when they are going to visit some other country. Budget is a limited resource to use carefully. Otherwise, it may run out in the meantime of visiting. Especially, many tourists have no access to information about Ethiopia tourism to plan for travel. Please plan your travel budget using the following strategies.

reduce the cost of hotel accommodation

Ethiopia is one of the tourist destinations of African since international travelers frequently visit Ethiopia for business and tourism travelers. All travelers would like to book their accommodation before they leave their home country. Typically, tourists want to see more detailed information to get affordable prices of hotels when they travel to Ethiopia. Thus, how can travelers find a reasonable price to reduce the cost of hotel accommodation? Five strategies are developed from my experience in Ethiopia and analysis of hotel prices from Booking.com.

What are those best 5 strategies to reduce the cost of hotel accommodation in Addis Ababa? A short brief of the strategies helps travelers to find a hotel at a reasonable price.

Strategy 1: Hotel Discounted Price

Many Ethiopian hotels offer discounted rates to group travelers. So, you need to look for a discounted price offer for your accommodation. Non-holiday seasons are the best seasons to get a discounted price offer. For example, hotel prices increased by over 100% during the holiday and festival seasons, while prices decreased by 50% during non-holiday seasons such as March, May, and June months. Furthermore, visitors are supposed to join group travelers in order to get discounted rates on hotel accommodation.

On other hand, travelers can get detailed information on the prices from each hotel’s respective websites, Booking.com or direct call. Because of strategy 1, tourists can save 50% of the hotel costs.

Strategy 2: Hotel Locations

The second option to reduce travel and accommodation costs in Ethiopia is to find low but high-quality hotel services in Addis Ababa. The prices of Hotels in Addis Ababa vary from location to location. For example, the prices of hotels found in the Bole, Mexico, and Stadium areas are relatively high compared to hotels found far away from international airports except for band hotels. Because of the proximity of the hotel, tourists could save the cost of the hotel by 10%.

In contrast, hotels beyond a 10km distance from the center of Addis Ababa have relatively low prices with quality services. The price difference because of location is significant. Some popular hotels away from center of Addis Ababa but their prices are reasonable as compared with hotels found at the center of Addis Ababa.

Strategy 3: Reduce the cost of Food and Beverage Services

Thirdly, you should not pay for food and beverage services in the hotel where you want to stay. But alternatively find shops that deliver food and beverage services with fair prices. There are many shops that provide quality food and beverage services with fair prices. Tourists can reduce the cost of food and beverage by 10%.

Strategy 4: Two stars and below level Hotels

The price of the hotels depends on the star level of hotels, though the services provided by hotels vary according to their level of star. Several business travelers prefer to stay in hotels with a high level of stars, whereas many tourists look for a hotel with a reasonable price rather than a level of stars. Why do tourists seek cheap accommodations while business travelers want to book hotels with a high star?

Business travelers may cover the travel-related cost from their own business profit, or the organization may reimburse related costs. So, international travel visit Ethiopia for a business purpose may prefer to stay at opulent hotels. In contrast, tourists cover travel costs by themselves. So, they look for a reasonable price as compared to business travelers.

Therefore, the fourth strategy of reducing hotel accommodation costs is by looking for hotels with two-star or below. It is also important to discern the quality of services. If the purpose of tourism is swimming, use 12 hours high internet connection, and enjoying the services of luxurious hotels, Ethiopia is not much comfortable as compared with Arab cities. However, if the purposes of tourists are visiting cultural, historical, and natural tourist attractions, hotels with two-stars and below are more convenient to reduce the accommodation cost.  

For example, the average price of popular hotels with two-stars and below is $20 per night. The average price of popular hotels with three stars is $60 whereas the average price of hotels above four stars is above $200. So, tourists can reduce the cost of hotel booking by 40%.

Strategy 5: Booking before three months ahead

Lastly, booking hotel accommodation before three months reduces the cost by 10% than booking within a month. For example, if visitors’ book accommodation at Best Western Plus Addis Ababa Hotel, the average price as of March 2021 is $105. But the price will reduce to $95. Such booking of hotel accommodation requires prepayment to benefit from price offer.

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Conclusion

To sum up, tourists can save about 40% costs of accommodation by level hotel stars, about 10% of the cost by using food and beverage outside of hotels, about 10% of cost by booking hotels away from downtowns, and about 50% of cost by booking hotels at discounted seasons.

Let’s consider analysis of the data of two hotels from Booking.com.

Let’s see the prices of hotels found at less than 8 km distance from the center of Addis Ababa. The minimum price of the hotels with above four stars is $48, while the maximum price of similar hotels in the same location is $122/night.

On the other hand, a minimum price of hotels below two stars and beyond 10km away from the center of Addis Ababa is $10 per night. The maximum average price of hotels in the same condition is $50 per night. So, tourists can save about 48% of hotel accommodation costs when we compare the prices of two categories.

Do you get some helpful information to reduce the cost of accommodation? Please write your feedback and share your experience. If you have any inquiries, send us an email now.