Depending on the property, the “booking window” (the time between when a reservation is made and the actual day of arrival) has shrunk from a six to twelve month period down to a month or less. This statement was made by the General Manager of the 417 room Royal Palms Resort in South Beach, FL.

Eighty-two percent of reservations at his resort property are being made within 30 days of arrival, and 32 percent within seven days of arrival. According to the Hotel News, this trend began in 2001 because it’s the nature of the market with vacationers becoming more spur of the moment and the increasing use of the Internet, which allows guests to confidently book rooms at a low rate at the last minute.Hotel and resort operators throughout the United States were quoted as experiencing the same phenomenon.

Here In Myrtle Beach...

Phil Cox, owner and operator of Resort Vacation Services at the Myrtle Beach Resort, stated, “ we’ve been in the resort vacation business for over 25 years and have seen this change come about gradually. It hasn’t been too long ago that you worried if your summer wasn’t sold-out by Easter."

"Now the majority of our reservations come within three weeks of the arrival day. We learned early on that the reservations business was soon going to be controlled by the Internet with vacationers scouring websites for last minute deals. As much as half or more of our business is now generated by our website, www.myrtle-beach-resort.com and a great deal of it is last minute Internet Specials. We put new specials up every week."

Mr. Cox closed by indicating that reduced weekly revenue resulting from special rates is overcome by increased occupancy.