TRAVEL

Booking a hotel room? Wait until after work

Sharyn Jackson
sjackson@dmreg.com
Wie Zhang, assistant professor of marketing at Iowa State University

Booking an upcoming vacation from your desk might be convenient, but a new Iowa State University study suggests waiting until you get home from work to reserve your hotel.

Analyzing reservations made on an online hotel site, Wei Zhang, assistant professor of marketing at ISU and Ajay Kalra, professor of marketing at Rice University, found that travelers who made reservations during business hours were less satisfied with their pick.

"If you have two consumers and one booked a hotel during business hours and one during non-business hours, both consumers get the same quality of service, but one is still less happy," Zhang said.

The finding can be a lesson for the tourism industry.

"That means some portion of satisfaction is outside the control of hotel managers," Zhang said.

Consumers who booked hotels during work hours tended to book higher quality hotels, the study found.

Also booking higher quality hotels were people who traveled farther from home, and those who booked farther in advance and pre-paid.

"If you pre-pay for the vacation well in advance, by the time you travel you tend to be happier and enjoy the vacation," Zhang said.

The study was culled from data for more than 4,500 consumers who made reservations between January 2008 and October 2009.