Some Reflections on NYC's Budget-Friendly Hotel Scene

This fall, I visited scores of budget and midrange hotels in New York City for EuroCheapo. Though I never set out to become an expert on hotels of whatever type, I realize that I have become just that along the way. My ability to distinguish between the good and the bad in the generally maligned budget and midrange hotel categories has emerged as a subspecialization.

I have reviewed hotels for EuroCheapo in Athens, Barcelona, Berlin, Bratislava, Dublin, Krakow, London, Munich, Rome, Stockholm, and now New York. For Rough Guides and koucou, among others, I have reviewed hotels in a range of Caribbean territories. In every location, there are interesting things to be learned about the social and cultural dynamics of places in addition to the more direct objective of assessing hotels. The hotel reviewing process, in other words, yields all sorts of other observations on local culture, migration patterns, and hotel management styles at a cultural level.

My benchmark for proprietor friendliness (and general hotel reviewer bliss) is Athens, where a typical day on the job would bring with it perhaps a dozen invitations to a coffee and long conversations about properties. Owners are usually on-site or easily accessible in Athens, or there are long-term sales managers in the office who are empowered to speak knowledgeably about rooms, clientele base, renovation dates, and other defining hallmarks.

New York is not Athens. On most occasions, showing up at a hotel and asking for a manager or someone in sales engenders panic among desk staff and a complete unwillingness to field even the simplest questions thereafter. New York hotels are top-down affairs, places where sales managers and PR teams filter access in a careful and measured manner. (I finally began to get better results when I stopped asking at reception desks for someone in management and simply introduced myself and explained that I was updating a hotel guide.) Most receptionists in New York, it would appear, have been given strict instructions not to communicate with anyone but guests about their places of employ. This is unfortunate, as it implies insecurity. As a hotel reviewer, I want to visit bold properties staffed by people who are proud of their rooms and services, no matter how modest they may be. The simplest and most basic hotel can be wonderful, after all.

There are some very good budget and midrange hotels in New York, though not as many as there should be. I closed my reviewing gig thinking that someone could make an absolute killing by setting up a hotel in New York that charges a simple, transparent nightly rate of $125 or $150 a night for simple but beautifully decorated double rooms. Said hotel would need to fight against the aesthetic objective of hotel chain standardization with simple, attractive, and durable decor and fixtures. There could be as few as two perks on tap: free wi-fi and a well-trained barista at an espresso machine in the lobby. By selling rooms at a rate divorced from the market pricing imperative and by maintaining a standard that is beautiful and not anonymous, this fantasy budget hotel would always be completely full.

The market is wide-open. Hotels in New York are too expensive and all too often terribly bland and cookie-cutter in look. Some investors need to look at the budget tourist market as a potentially sophisticated one, not simply a lowest-common-denominator/anything-goes demographic of tourists who will accept any bone thrown their way.

Comments

[Mike Barish]

Well put. Visiting NYC hotels may never lead to coffee invitations, but the properties could certainly learn to lighten up and personalize themselves a bit.

[Alex Robertson Textor]

Indeed. Thanks for the comment.

[kari]

Tapping into local culture through hotels, indeed. People can't just go with the flow in NYC. If you say 'hi' to a stranger on the street, they assume the worst; you are out to get them and, possibly, take their money. Sounds like the hotel desk staff falls right into place.

When I was reviewing hotels in the Big Apple, I found 'coming in from the side' worked best. Asking for a price list or saying something funny broke the ice better than being a 'professional.'

[Jeroen]

>My benchmark for proprietor friendliness is Athens

It's not just Athens, it's the whole Balkans from the Croatian/Montenegrin border via Albania and Greece into Bulgaria. These are my favourite countries for guide research as you're constantly talking to people who take the time to sit down with you, introduce you to all their buddies sitting at the bar, and indeed offer you a drink.