Released on: December 14, 2009, 9:58 am
Author: Hotels.com
Industry: Travel

Hotels.com, the leading accommodation site, has encouraged travellers to shop around when booking their Christmas city breaks to secure a top end hotel for a mid end price.*

Top-end hotels (particularly those in the four-star category) have cut their prices harder than other categories, which means that the price difference between a three-star hotel and a four-star is less than it has been for years. The average cost of upgrading from a mid-range to a top class hotel is as low as £2 per night in Oslo, just £7 in Barcelona and £9 in Madrid and Mexico City.

The cost of a shift to a four-star hotel can bring huge benefits, with better facilities, often more central locations, great restaurants (for that all important holiday breakfast) and bigger rooms.

However, four-star hotels have struggled particularly in the downturn as travellers have continued to take their main holidays but have made other breaks a discretionary purchase and have trimmed costs - preserving their break but spending less on hotels. The response from many hotels in the four-star category has been to cut rates back harder than those in the three-star category, bringing the cost of upgrade down substantially.

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