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Major Operational Changes for 2018

That would be so useful....
The hotel booking process isn’t very good at the moment really to be honest.

Is it actually true that they rarely fill all the rooms in the hotels?

Really does make you wonder why on Earth they steamed ahead with the Cebeebies Hotel and the Village...

You’d think they would want to take the “EasyJet Approach” and do everything they can to fill every single room....
Because surely if a room is empty, £0 is being made from that resource.
If you sell it last minute for even £40, well that’s £40 more than they would have had if it was empty?? Surely?!

I don’t really understand Merlin sometimes
 
Easyjet is another good example of a company that shows its prices for the next 3 weeks if you click the calendar option. Again, it promotes bookings and the filling of empty seats by letting people see the cheaper prices. Ultimately, if someone has to go on a certain date and at a certain time they book regardless, but ive booked a few flights where I have used this option to find the cheaper fares.
 
GaryH said:
Easyjet is another good example of a company that shows its prices for the next 3 weeks if you click the calendar option. Again, it promotes bookings and the filling of empty seats by letting people see the cheaper prices. Ultimately, if someone has to go on a certain date and at a certain time they book regardless, but ive booked a few flights where I have used this option to find the cheaper fares.
Click to expand...
And a customer buying a cheaper ticket is better than a customer not buying one at all.
 
Inferno said:
Because surely if a room is empty, £0 is being made from that resource.
If you sell it last minute for even £40, well that’s £40 more than they would have had if it was empty?? Surely?!
Click to expand...

Yes and no.
If a room is cleaned after someone leaves, not slept in for two nights and then used, the housekeepers can concentrate on cleaning the rooms that have been used, therefore fewer housekeeping staff are needed. Of course if it is unused for over a week it really needs freshening up before being booked again.
An empty room doesn't have anyone in it that is using towels and bedding that needs washing.
Or drinking coffee, using shampoo and eating breakfast.

There will be a minimum price they need for the room to cover all the cleaning, laundry, cooking and service costs and for all the AT hotels it will be higher than £40.
Premier Inn is rarely lower than £30 and its an extra £9 per person for breakfast, plus toiletries are wall mounted not proper little bottles and there are other cost savings there (entertainment, self-service check- in etc).

Basically they will be better off leaving some rooms empty instead of occupying at a low price, as the costs of cleaning, laundry and food outweigh the income.
 
Yes and no Jon.....

Ok so £40 is a little cheap, but lets say someone saw a room for 2 adults B&B advertised on the rate calendar for £89. Chances are they would book it.

So, the room may be sold at minimal profit, or even a slight loss, BUT, the couple will probably buy drinks the hotels, maybe have dinner, and will visit the theme park or the waterpark. The room is only part of the story, profits can be made elsewhere. Its getting people through the door is the key.
 
Yeah I agree £40 is extremely cheap - just picked a number out of the air to make a point :)

But surely it’s better to have more people through the door, more people spreading word of mouth, more potential spa appointments, more potential golf bookings, more drinks sold, more souvenirs sold, more photos bought, more annual pass sale and “come back later in the year” oppurtinities, more advocates doing Merlin’s marketing for them.

Surely having lots of people there on the quieter days is better than a few?

At the same time, it would open the entire resort side of things up to people who otherwise may not have been able to afford it. Wider target and all that lark

And... more “wow I didn’t expect this!”
And less “hmm I could have gone to Europa for this money :( )

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I an assuming of course that occupancy is genuinely low? Is this actually a fact?
 
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Merlin aren't the only ones who do this sort of thing tbf. Loads of hotels say they're full when they're not etc. Not just in theme parks, but for example when I went Phantasialand in 2017, Matamba was showing fully booked and Ling Bao almost booked, in reality it seemed we were the only people there. Seems silly.

Speaking of PL, as bad as Towers' booking system is it's light years ahead of theirs lol
 
and again there is a point where to deliver a good experience that will spread positive word-of-mouth and encourage repeat spending and return trips, they need to get the staffing at the resort right and more staff means more costs.
Yes having someone stood at reception with nothing to do is bad and they need to occupy a few more rooms. But fill 50 more rooms and you probably need another receptionist to deal with the rush.

Same with the bar, yes more occupied rooms means more people might go and try to get a drink, but with one barman the queue/wait is too long and people go back to their room instead, or post a negative TripAdvisor review about the horrendous queues and awful service at the bar.
There will be a fine balance between occupancy to make a minimum profit during the Winter and high staff levels to cope (or not cope as I complained about) at Fireworks/Scarefest.
 
Towers have updated the website and now state everything will open for 11am.

Theme Park opens to all other guests from 10am with over half our rides available, with all other rides and attractions to be open by 11am at the latest every day. Park open and close hours will always be flexible to ensure we can give our guests great experiences - if the park is busy we’ll always do our best to stay open!

https://www.altontowers.com/useful-info/opening-times/
 
This sounds like they realised the original plan was bad but they don't have the maintenance staff capacity to get everything open by 10am.
They still need to show what won't be open at 10am though, so guests can plan and not think "half the park is open, that's OK, I'll do Nemesis first" and then find its not open. Need to be clear which half is open!
 
Still absolutely shocking....
Not quite as poor as it was, but still unacceptable for a resort like Alton Towers.

As everyone predicted... the Merlin formula of
“Everything going to be bad”, “actually no it’s not! It’s going to be amazing now compared to what we said!!! Haven’t we done well listening to your feedback!”

Great news re rapids though... well, not great news... it’s just what we should expect to be fair
 
So Alton Originally planned to reduce ERT, and have half the rides open by 10 and the rest by 11.

Wait a minute, this will cause outrage, so let put it out there that we will have our major rides open at 12, everyone will complain, give it a week and then we will make it look like we back tracked to our original plan, and everyone is happy :rolleyes:
 
It's great that they seem to have listened to feedback and made changes. HOWEVER, they should never have made those changes in the first place, and what's happening now still isn't exactly great.
 
RoyJess said:
So Alton Originally planned to reduce ERT, and have half the rides open by 10 and the rest by 11.

Wait a minute, this will cause outrage, so let put it out there that we will have our major rides open at 12, everyone will complain, give it a week and then we will make it look like we back tracked to our original plan, and everyone is happy :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

That is not what happened!

:)
 
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