With more than 600 Rick Steves tours a year, we have guides working all over Europe all the time. It’s an amazing pool of talent, passion, and travel savvy. They have their own digital communication portal and are constantly rendezvousing, sharing ideas, lessons, and having fun. For me, touring with Reid and Trish is a good chance to get in on the social end of things. Here (from left) guides Ben, Francesca, Trish, Reid (mugging for the camera), and me try out a new restaurant near Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori. (By the way, many of the photos on this blog are shot by Trish Feaster, whose own blog is at The Travelphile.com).
There are plenty of people researching for various guidebooks and websites in Europe, and rarely do I feel a strong, kindred spirit with them. But meeting Tom, who founded EuroCheapo.com, was really fun. Tom is a hotel wonk; he’s friends with many of the same hoteliers that I’ve recommended for decades. He’s right up-to-date on the trials and tribulations hoteliers are suffering in this age of Booking.com and TripAdvisor. Even the most independent of hotel spirits are finding themselves “invisible” if they don’t enlist with booking sites (like Booking.com). I don’t understand how these various booking agents can justify taking 18 percent of a hotel’s gross income when you compare all the real investment and tangible expenses of running a hotel to a website. Here, over a fascinating conversation about the hotel business, Tom, Trish, and I are enjoying one of my favorite kind of restaurant: an enoteca (a place specializing in fine wine by the glass and simple, rustic plates of ingredients that pair nicely with the wine).
As a tour guide, even when trying to vacation on a tour led by someone else (as I’m doing on this Best of Europe in 21 Days tour), I can never let a teachable moment go by. On this tour, each of our guides stops by his or her favorite hill town to break the long drive from Rome to the Italian Riviera (Cinque Terre). Reid stops at Massa Marittima–a delightful hill town that was new to me. Walking around its medieval walls, we came to a fig tree. After all the fig leaves we saw yesterday at the Vatican Museum, I just had to try one on. All I can say is, “They’re really sticky.”
This looks like a great trip, but it also makes me feel a little sad that our version was a bit “scaled back” from what you are experiencing. At the time (and this was several years ago), the company had made the decision to no longer provide “assistant” tour directors. Our director did the best he could, but it was his very first tour and sadly, his inexperience showed at times. And finally, we requested, but did not get, Francesca’s tour in Rome. It was still a good trip and a great introduction to Europe’s highlights, but still, I feel we did not quite get what we had expected.
Rick,
The thing about Booking.com is it lets one manage one’s reservations, search in one place for multiple AVAILABLE options, and cancel in a reasonable time frame (3 days to 30 days depending on the property) should plans change. Contacting 5, 6, 10 places one-at-a-time to see if they have a room, to see if they will respond, is old school, tiresome and time consuming. I am sorry to hear they take an 18% cut, but I for one am willing to pay a little more to only have to look one place and get multiple options, especially when I am going to a city for the first time. On return trips, I contact the proprietor directly first to see if they can accommodate us, thus cutting out the middleman of Booking.com for a proprietor that is now known to me.
The hotel website is still, BTW, very important in my lodging research. A good website can cinch the deal, or may have me trying direct with the hotel or B&B should Booking.com say they do not have rooms. I know that the establishment might be holding out inventory and if I really want to stay there, I reach out directly. Multiple outlets like Booking.com, TA, listings on city websites and B&B specialty sites, listings in your guidebooks, and use of social media should increase reservations and room fill rates. No independent should depend on one way only to get their rooms full.