Why do travel sites always show per-person accommodation price on the basis of two sharing the same room?

Question

Most travel websites, especially those presenting deals and allowing comparison of different packages, show the price per traveler. Same case for advertisements on Internet and billboards in cities.

When I want to dig further into a deal, I enter the number of travelers, which is 2 by default. As I do not have a companion, I replace the value by 1, causing a price update which makes that deal not so interesting after all. Anyway, this is logical since the hotel room price is not shared.

Nearly all situations stipulate that price is on the basis of "2 people sharing a double room". When planning solo travel, comparison is difficult.

Why is it the standard to assume that people often travel as a pair?

Is there any efficient way to compare travel offers for solo travelers?

The question also applies for cruise lines.

Answer 1

Not all of them do. It definitely depends on which site you use, and what style of accommodation you are after.

Generally, people going on holiday often have someone with them - a significant other, so often it's based on 2 people sharing. Especially vacation prices.

However, if you're looking for say, hostels, it's on a per-person basis (eg Hostelbookers).

And if you're looking at hotels for a single person, Booking.com allows you to sort on a per-single-person room for prices, which I've found useful in the past.

Answer 2

I think this is because you are using vacation booking sites, which make the basic assumption that you are part of a couple, as that is the most common scenario. It annoys me a bit too, as having three children makes the default 2+2 not suit my needs.

Using business travel booking sites the assumption is always one person, as this is the most common when traveling or staying on business.

At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter as you will always be able to change from the default 2 to whatever number you require.

Answer 3

To bring down sticker price to help consumers to commit. Same reason flights used to be advertised before taxes. It also helps to bring down room charges that would be for the room regardless of the number of people (like city foreigner taxes), etc. In Canada they're slowly building legislation to adjust the way people advertise these prices.

There's also the single room supplements. In theory if a room has two people in it, the incidentals that would be charged to the room would be x2 (say they both have a diet coke). In a single room the hotel only has one chance to sell that product, thus decreasing their potential revenue on incidentals by half. Ergo, they want a slight supplement for their hassle. I know...poor hotel industry, right?

Answer 4

There is a small distinction between assuming people travel in pair and showing a price per traveler. I don't think an assumption that people travel in pairs explains why price are displayed in this way because even in this scenario, I like to see the total cost of the booking as soon as possible and I assume many other people do too.

The truth is that in many cases, hotels simply charge per room. Whether you are one, two or sometimes more does not make a big difference. You will sometimes incur a small surcharge for single occupancy or for an extra bed but in any case you are using the whole room.

Pretending there is a price “per person” only allows the site to lower the apparent price of the room in the search results, which can then look particularly good if other sites happen to display a price per room.