With our credit well and truly crunched and wallets squeezed so no moth could survive, the travel industry needs to be inventive if we are to be enticed away from our homes.

Shangri-La Singapore Garden Wing - Koi Pond

It started in a small way back in February when Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts claimed to be the first international hotel group to offer free WIFI and wired Internet to every guest. Then in March the same group announced the launch of their Customised Hotel Package Programme. You can make a reservation on the Shangri-La website using the Custom Stay (Best Available) Rate and then add extras like airports transfers, Spa treatments, laundry etc etc at a discounted price. The actual ‘menu’ of extras varies from hotel to hotel.

The point about the promotion is that a) you are getting the hotel’s best internet rate: subject to Terms and Conditions; b) you are receiving a discount by pre-booking; and 3) you are able to budget more easily.

Amari Palm Reef Ko Samui

A few days later, the Thai-based hotel group Amari Hotels and Resorts came out with their own version of this promotion called “Dynamic Packaging”. The timing was so close that I am sure this was a coincidence but it is interesting the way the hotel marketer’s mind is working.

Just like the Shangri-La offer, you can pre-book your ‘extras’ e.g. airport transfers, meals and excursions thereby saving money on the advertised prices and keeping track of your hard-earned, fatigued cash.

The last promotion is for me the most-interesting. The Quincy Hotel in Singapore is a new 108 room, boutique hotel at Mount Elizabeth and its rates are inclusive of:

• Personalised limousine pick-up from airport on arrival
• Daily buffet breakfast, set lunch & dinner
• Cocktails
• Unlimited broadband Internet access
• Local telephone calls
• Daily 2 pieces of laundry
• Minibar is replenished daily
• All day coffee and tea

The headline rate is S$208 plus tax and service for a single and S$268 ++ for a double.

That means, based on a double room, you can stay in Singapore for around £71 per person (using current exchange rates with the only extras to think about being sightseeing and perhaps shopping – well this is Singapore!. N.B. These prices are scheduled to increase in May.

Chicken Rice - Image courtesy of the Singapore Tourism Board

This all-inclusive concept is of course nothing new but there are not many proponents in Asia; and to my knowledge there are no other city properties going down this path. Now, you could argue that is for one very good reason: Asia is one of the best regions in the world to eat out with Singapore right up there at the top. The city is one of the easiest places anywhere to travel around with oodles of noodles, sticky rice, laksa and Chicken rice. In fact probably just about any type of cuisine you care to mention: pizzas, burgers, sushi, banana leaf curry, Thai Green Curry…..(OK, enough – my mouth is watering).

So why would you just want to eat in the hotel? Well, according to a report in the Straits Times

“Quincy’s novel pricing policy seems to be pulling people in, economic downturn or not: It has achieved 76 per cent occupancy since its soft opening last month, higher than the national average occupancy rate of 67 per cent in January.

Quincy’s general manager Franck Hardy said guests will have a ‘hassle-free’ stay during these belt-tightening times without worrying about add-ons to their bills. ‘We wanted to do something completely different, not follow the norm.’”

I applaud the initiative and I hope it continues to work.

It would not suit me because part of the fun of Singapore is exploring and finding new places to eat. (I know that for some people ‘fun’ and ‘Singapore’ do not belong in the same sentence but I am a fan of the city and will happily debate its virtues). But it is obviously suiting some people and the thrust of this piece is that hotels have to be more inventive in the way they present their hotels and some hotel managers are breaking away from the norm.

There is nothing here that could be called rocket science and it is more evolution than revolution but I believe it is only the start. In my opinion it is now for us, the consumer, to tell the hotel industry what it is we want. Are any of these initiatives going to persuade you to travel and if not what would?