For those who don't know Răzvan Dobre, I can tell you that he has 20 years of experience in tourism, with a predilection for holiday areas ( mountains and sea). Răzvan read the article in which I said that Romanian tourists are the most stressed Europeans when they choose to go on holiday and realized that ours still have a big problem - how to guarantee a reservation. The lines below are written by Răzvan , now the manager of the newest luxury hotel on the coast.
The reservation guarantee - Romanians' phobia
First of all, everyone wants the best rate (meaning the lowest possible or give them some money to come to your hotel) and the best booking conditions. That's normal, we all want to pay as little as possible for our vacation. But what does the best conditions mean for some: to make the reservation now, not to give you any money and to be able to cancel on the morning of arrival if there are more than 20% clouds in the sky. And you should thank him for making a reservation and maybe one day he will give you the honor of coming to you too. But let's take them one at a time. I want to make a clarification here. With all the shortcomings and problems of our domestic tourism, in certain chapters, especially in the higher categories of hotels, we also learned how to do tourism like in other parts of the world. That is, where the Romanians go without making a move and do not comment anything on the conditions for making the reservation. However, when he makes a reservation with us, the situation changes. And you know why? First of all, because I think we underestimate each other. Let me tell you that our Romanian understands us, he is not like those foreigners who take a penny from us as soon as we make the reservation. These Romanians also don't have a business to run to make money. Should he do charity for other Romanians?
Online booking or hotel booking: which is more flexible?
Let's start with online reservations. This is where it's really fun. Because they've made reservations in Turkey , Greece , Bulgaria , etc. at all-inclusives, our people are thinking about coming to the beach for a few days to see how bad it is here compared to those. And they try to make a reservation on almost every weekend in the summer, if possible from Saturday to Sunday or at most from Friday to Sunday. However, as I told you, we've also started to beware of these tourists who make reservations now and who will cancel 80%. Why? Because it was announced on the news that it would rain outside for 10 minutes. After a week of tanning at all-inclusives, they can't stay in Mamaia from morning to night on the beach. So we're also imposing new restrictions of a minimum of 5 nights of accommodation for those who really want to spend their vacation at the beach. I'll talk about those with more than 5 nights later.
Those who can't find rooms for a night or two don't give up. They start emailing and asking for reservations. And of course with the most important argument in the world: dude, you have to give me a big discount because I'm taking your camera every weekend in the summer. That means about 16 nights of accommodation. The truth is that these rooms are very hard to come by on weekends in the summer and I couldn't wait to get the request and give him a 50-60% discount so I could convince him to come to me. That if not, he goes to another and takes all his weekends. But come on little girl and stay for 16 consecutive days and let's see how I treat you then.
To conclude with those who want to spend the weekend at the beach in the summer: wait for the summer to come and if there are still rooms, try to book them then. And yes, at summer weekend prices.
Non-refundable, but without paying now!
And with that we move on to the other category. Those who book for more than one night. We still stick to online sites and here we have two categories: some who make their standard reservation with the cancellation of the reservation a period before entry (almost all hotels have set this period to more than 14 days in order to have time to sell these rooms). Because about 50% of these reservations will materialize. The rest make reservations to be made, if possible at several hotels, and then they see what they are doing and where they are going. And they swipe a credit card that has no money on it and when you try to pre-authorize it the first night (yes, that's what it says on the confirmation you received!!!) most are declined transactions or insufficient funds .
And there are those who choose the non-refundable rate in English. A large part of these customers do not understand this term either in Romanian or in English. They do not understand at all that by choosing that rate they must pay for the room immediately without the possibility of cancellation and with the total penalty of the reservation. This is how it is all over the world and the circus begins when, after we receive this type of reservation, we try to collect the money. “Aaaaah, well, it didn’t say anywhere that I have to pay now”. Yes, it did say it when you chose the rate, when you inserted the card, when you received the reservation confirmation which also has some details there that MUST BE READ both before and after making the reservation. Many give up on this step: “how can he not cancel his reservation if he wants and we give him his money back”. Well, if you make a non-refundable reservation in Turkey, Greece, etc. there you can cancel it and they will give you your money back?
I want to come too but I don't know when. You give me an offer for the whole summer.
I will now move on to those who send a reservation request by email to the hotel. During this period we have at least 10-12 email conversations with the same customer until they decide whether to come or not. Why so many? Well, first he tells you that he also wants an offer of 5 or 6 nights in July or August. Like, when we want that they don't specify the period. If we send them a 5-night option that starts on Sunday and ends on Friday, of course they don't agree. Then he starts sending us about 3 periods when he thinks it's not raining (the novel's obsession with summer vacation). When will we get rid of this obsession called rain and think that in the summer it only rains for a maximum of 2 hours and then it's very warm and fine (I closed the parenthesis).
Let's continue. We send the 3 offers for the periods chosen by the customer and of course they only look at the rate. Be the cheapest. After he chooses his rate, we inform him that for that rate he has to pay us in full now and he can no longer cancel the reservation. He also realizes by reading the last 5 emails that this is so and the negotiation begins. And now I list the options that they generously offer us to make the reservation at the lowest possible rate:
"He can't give us a part now and the rest a little later in the summer."
"We can't let him cancel through June like this" (what changes in June compared to now that you still don't know if it's going to rain?)
"If he gives us all the money and something happens he wants us to give it back."
And we have to explain to everyone in a few more emails that they can choose a more flexible rate (ie slightly higher) but with the possibility to pay a small advance now, cancel 15 days before, etc.
But they still don't understand why I can't just give him that lowest rate and let him cancel whenever he wants (some want 24 or 48 hours).
How do we educate ourselves as tourists?
I also come with the questions for which I wrote this article:
Why is it that when we go out of the country we accept the conditions of the reservation from the beginning and when they are with us we try to "improve" them as much as possible in our favor? All business in tourism is with us and with them.
Why do most of the Romanians who book with us in the country use credit cards without money in the account? Why do they think that it is enough to put a card number there and that no one will try to take your money to guarantee a reservation whose conditions you accepted when you pressed "Book the room"?
The rest is to continue to do tourism education with them and to explain to each of them what non-refundable means, what is that cancellation policy and above all to understand that yes, we want to give them all the support and comfort to have a successful vacation but at the same time trying to make a business from which we have to make a profit.
P.S. In order not to be thrown to the pillar of infamy, I specify that there are also many tourists who understand very well how to make a reservation and its conditions. Yes, I am also talking about Romanians, foreigners do not come into this discussion at all. Well, maybe only if they are Arabs and Israelis, but we talk about them in another article.
More articles written by Răzvan Dobre can be found on his blog.
