As we approach the busy summer tourist season, here is a public service announcement from the Traverse City Econo Lodge. In this day and age, there are many options for the traveler for booking a room which include 800#’s, countless website options, taking a chance on walking through the door at the last minute, and the good old fashioned call the hotel/motel directly. Here at the Traverse City Econo Lodge, we urge you to call us directly at (231) 943-3040 to make your reservations, especially if you have a special need or request. But if you do chose to use another source, follow it up with a call to us to make sure we can meet that need or request. If you’ve ever been to Traverse City in the summer you know that rooms fill up fast and at most times we do not have the availability to make last minute changes to reservations. This special need could be something as simple as you need a ground floor room. The Traverse City Econo Lodge has a variety of room types and some one of a kind rooms. For instance, we have one two room suite and it is located on the second floor. Our rooms with two double beds are only on the first floor. Rooms with two queen beds are on the second floor. Countless times every summer we hear guests say “but they said I could have ….”. The “they” is someone at an 800#. While some lodging properties have their own toll free number, most of the those 800#’s you are calling are to a Central Reservation System. The “they” you are talking to have never set foot on the property in question and may not even be in the same country. The same can be said of a lot of those websites you may be using. They may not have up to date information on the property. They may give you the option of making a “special requests” but as they information travels through their system to ours (or that of any other property), that special request may be so far hidden within screens that the property never sees it at all or at least not until the day of arrival. One such reservation really stands out in my mind. The reservation came through with a special request for a second floor room, away from elevators (we don’t have one anyway), entrances and vending machines. The reservation was for one of our “one of a kind” rooms and this particular room is located on the first floor, right next to an entrance and across from our pool and vending machines. This was for a Saturday night in July. We were full, with no options for changing the room. And we were not able to even make a courtesy call to the guest to let them know the situation because they had use a pre-pay website which provided us with no contact information for the guest. We don’t want this to happen to you. Call. Talk to people who actually know the property. Ask your questions. We want you to be happy with your accommodations and if you have a need that we are unable to meet, we’ll tell.
