In 2008 the tropical island of Bali had an unusual strong demand for hotel rooms that lead to a "sold out" response of 57.3% of all reservation requests for reservations made 60 days in advance and 82.6% declined requests for bookings made 30 days in advance. This trend is continuing long-term according to statements by Bali hotels http://www.Bali1.com in 2009, what is not pleasant news for travellers used to do all their reservations last minute.
The comfort of online reservations leave many people unaware that hotels deal with physical stock that only can be booked once for any given time. Reservation specialist for hotels in Bali Nyoman Tistawati comments "It is difficult to alert prospective customers about the situation and not sound self-serving, however it's just a fact that people wait too long with their bookings. The decline rate was way too high in 2008 as a result of it. Some even think they can still get a room at a discount rate until a few days before embarkation on a flight to Bali. We preferred there would be more rooms available in the summer months, but it's just not the case. It can be seriously difficult to get the required room you want at any rate if you're booking based on your individual timing. What is most always too late during the summer months, last year we had a unnecessary amount of declined reservations due to regular 'sold out' status of popular hotels".
The reality of holiday resorts that are booked out months in advance is an unknown phenomena in a world that usually never runs out of anything. And is always able to restock sold out inventory. Nyoman Tistawati says "Yes, but regrettably not in this case. We really need to alert people this year, because many times they're really disappointed that the dream resort they have in mind for their honeymoon or anniversary is already gone, just because they waited too long to reserve it". And it's unlike people think that the luxurious deluxe ones would be available longer due to their upmarket pricing. The exact opposite is true, they are the most popular ones and there is higher demand. Some famous five star resorts adjusted to that strong demand of 2008 with higher prices for 2009 to slow down demand, especially for the December New Year's season, when rates are significantly higher than the rest of the year.
The second peak season of the year are the months June to October, when rooms will not be available last minute at any rate. According to http://www.bali1.com there are only 2 options to secure rooms for that period of time. Either book them now to get the room of personal choice, or try to book just before the trip but then send a personal 'top 10 preference list' with that in order to find any resort that has still a vacancy. Be prepared to pay full retail in that rare case a room is found. Bali1.com deals directly with hotels and has access to multiple sources and airline systems as well. Discounts get usually dropped by hotels for last minute demand, when they receive multible bookings for one and the same room. In that case it's an advantage to be very flexible or avoid all the last-minute pain and just be early.
About Bali1.com:
Bali1.com is a Pacifico Company with local office in Bali and providing an online reservation service since 1999.
