Reservations about making reservations

By Tim Leffel

updated 2:50 p.m. ET Sept. 13, 2007

My family is vacationing on the coast of Mexico this fall. I am absolutely positive that we will have a nice room with a view, in a hotel that we love.

Where are we staying? I don't know yet. I am sure we'll get a great hotel room, though — and at a good price — because we will arrive with no reservations. We'll decide where to unpack when we get there.

To readers accustomed to planning out their vacations like a hectic work schedule, this concept probably seems downright bizarre. To any veteran traveler used to seeing a room before saying yes, however, this strategy is as natural as picking a restaurant after arrival. Why commit yourself before you know what you are getting?

The digital lodging divide
If you were born in the last 30 years, it's probably hard for you to imagine traveling without the Internet to guide you. But in many ways Internet communication is still an unreliable novelty outside the most developed countries, especially at hotels that are not geared to tourists with loads of money.

You can't just boot up your laptop and see all the hotels in a foreign destination, anyway. To have an online presence, a hotel must meet at least three basic criteria. 1) The hotel must have reliable Internet access and a reliable electricity supply. 2) At least one staff member must be able to speak, read and write English effectively. 3) A staff member must be available to spend hours every day going back and forth with travelers who ask lots of questions and yet may never book a room.

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In many hotels I've seen firsthand, not even one of these assumptions is correct. Sure, most hotels in Europe can handle Internet reservations, but much of the developing world is still waiting for the phone guy to show up. There are cost considerations, too. If a hotel room at the "Coconut Hideaway" is only $30 a night (not an uncommon price in many locations), it would take a lot of extra business to justify the effort and expense of accepting online reservations.

Consequently, what you see on the typical hotel booking site is only a fraction of what's available in any location outside the United States. In fact, most lodging options are the familiar international chain-hotel brands; there are very few family-owned inns, independent boutique hotels or small, local chains online unless they have an international partner. So if you are trying to set up your whole trip from the comfort of your computer chair, you're at a big disadvantage.

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