Hotel accommodation in UK: Where the price is worth paying, and where not – the best destinations for customer service.

– United Kingdom:

Belfast is the new chart leader; London brings up the rear in the rankings.

– International:

Eastern Europe scores well while Tokyo, Athens and Paris lose ground. Strong new entry to the rankings: Budapest in third place.

London, July 2010 – If only the hotel had lived up to expectations… In an assessment of the price that guests have paid for hotel accommodation, some have been quite critical of their personal experience. Was the room really a bargain, or were the facilities on offer simply overpriced?

As the second half of the year commences, hotel.info, the free online hotel reservation service with more than 210,000 hotels worldwide, has investigated the reviews submitted by its booking customers in terms of value for money. Which cities’ hoteliers offered good service at a fair price, and where were impressions rather less favourable? The investigation focused on experiences of guests who had stayed in three and four-star hotels. hotel.info compared the findings from the first two quarters of 2010.

hotel.info Top 15 Cities in the United Kingdom

The Northern Irish capital of Belfast is the new top city. Its hotels’ value for money was judged to be the best, from the customers’ point of view. Generally hoteliers were unable to sustain the level of quality on offer compared with the price demanded, and many cities changed positions in the rankings. The exception was Aberdeen, as Scotland’s “Silver City” retained its eleventh place. In Cardiff, however, standards in the hotel industry seemed to have dropped, or the prices were too high. Previously in fifth position in the rankings, the Welsh capital is now only one place from the bottom. Only hotels in London were judged by hotel.info customers to provide less value for money.

hotel.info Global Top 20: (major cities)

In the global rankings, Prague took over Lisbon’s crown, moving into first place ahead of the Portuguese capital. Visitors to the “city of a hundred spires” indicated the highest levels of satisfaction with the value for money offered by the hotels they had stayed in. While Berlin, Ottawa and Vienna made slight advances, Tokyo, Athens and Paris lost significant ground. Obviously their guests were not so convinced by the service they received for their money. Improved value for money was registered by hoteliers in cities such as Shanghai, Istanbul, Hong Kong and Rome, allowing these destinations to move into the global rankings for the first time. Budapest even managed to leap to third place, as the Hungarian capital’s hoteliers seemed to have found a persuasive mix of service and price. In contrast, hotels in Rio de Janeiro were unable to leave such a favourable impression in terms of value for money. However, Buenos Aires succeeded in being South America’s representative in the rankings. Bucharest proved to be a strong new contender, helping Eastern Europe to dominate the top half of the table.

In an interesting development, overall satisfaction in terms of value for money rose slightly on the international stage in comparison with the first quarter of 2010, although many major cities that had previously been in the top 20 no longer make the cut. Hoteliers in North America, in particular, are no longer able to count value for money as one of their strengths. In an especially difficult to swallow development, New York City improved its value for money rating from 5.77 to 6.02, but this was not sufficient to take the Big Apple past Berne in the rankings.

Guests are invited to assess the hotel that they have booked through www.hotel.info on a scale of 0 to 10 after they have checked out. Apart from criteria such as room quality and the friendliness of the staff, users can also evaluate the relationship between price and the quality on offer.