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For A Little While Longer, You Can Name Your Price At The Hotel Grand Pacific

Go To The Hotel's Web Site Where: 463 Belleville St , Victoria, BC, Canada, V8V 1X3
October 31, 2011 at 9:00 AM | by | Comments (0)

It isn't often that a hotel lets you have a say in the price of your stay. But that's exactly what Victoria BC's Hotel Grand Pacific is offering for the next two weeks. Running through next Friday November 11, prospective guests can visit the PayWhatYouWantVictoria site, answer some survey questions, and enter a price that they feel best reflects the "worth" of a one-night stay at the waterfront hotel.

When we first heard about this, we immediately thought of when Radiohead released In Rainbows in 2007, becoming the first band to ever release a digital album without an actual price—customers chose how much they wanted to pay, and that was that. By doing so, the band was challenging the conventional record distribution process, and the aging music industry in general. But in this case, the motives are a little more complex.

According to the site, "no reasonable offer" will be refused. Which to us sounds intentionally vague—one person's idea of "reasonable" could vastly differ from that of other (more budget-minded) folks. But this is irrelevant to the hotel, who has already budgeted that for a certain amount of rooms (ten per night), for a certain amount of days (56), not much money will be made.

What it will receive instead is more valuable: customer feedback. Similar to Affinia's TLC movement, this is just another chapter in the long, rambling saga of hotels wanting to receive more and better feedback from their guests. To get them to really talk, you have to make it worth their while.

In addition to the prerequisite survey to enter the promotion, guests who actually score a pay-what-you-want hotel room must provide additional feedback on the hotel's amenities and service both during and after their stay.

Additionally, the hotel is using this opportunity to promote other initiatives launching this year—like iPads available in the lobby, free Wi-Fi in the rooms, "Pampered Pooch" program, and new "Urban Room" room type. Undoubtedly, they'll be wanting feedback from the pooches as well.

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