Hotels of Greece: Information on Booking Hotels in Athens and the Greek Islands and Mainland
Other Useful Matt
Barrett Websites:
Athens
Survival Guide
Greece
Travel Guide
Greek
Island Guide
Lesvos Island
Guide
Mykonos Island Guide
Santorini Island Guide
Sifnos
Island Guide
Rhodes
Island Guide
Paros Island Guide
Naxos Island Guide
Peloponessos
Pelion
Delphi
Meteora
Greek Food
Guide
Greek
Music
History
of Greece
North
Carolina Guide
Paris
Guide
In very
few hotels in this guide are the forms going to
the hotel itself. What I have tried to do is match
the agencies with the best relationship and the
best prices for the particular hotel or area. This
is because in my opinion and in the opinion of
many people who have used my sites, booking
directly with the hotel puts you at a disadvantage
in terms of planning the rest of your trip. In
other words if you book directly with the hotel
then you won't have anyone to help you with ferry
tickets, flights, or who can come to your aid
should any problems arise. Plus anyone who has
tried to book a trip to Greece and the islands
bypassing an agent has discovered that it is
impossible to get reliable ferry information (or
tickets) over the internet. Some travelers have
found themselves with a hotel booking on an island
and no boat to get them there. This won't happen
with a travel agent and even if it does, you won't
be penalized or have to pay for two hotels for the
same night.
Also some of the agencies buy blocks of rooms
from the hotels and can sell them at a lower rate
than the hotel offers to the public. Occasionally
the rates can be ridiculously low as incentive to
book tours, cruises or just to fill rooms that
would be otherwise empty.
If these are not good enough reasons to use an agency keep in mind that neither the hotel, or automated on-line booking services will tell you the drawbacks of the hotel, if for example it happens to be next to a disco or has an owner who is a lunatic or if 'on the beach' actually means several hundred steps above it. A travel agent should be able to give an unbiased and objective opinion on a hotel, plus once you book with them they are there, in Greece, to assist you.
More importantly: Automated On-line booking sites are taking over the world of travel at the expense of personal service.
When you visit an online hotel booking site like Crummyhotels.com you are contributing to the elimination of a species, namely travel agents. Automated sites take the personal aspects out of travel, the human contact you get in planning a trip. These companies are betting that the traveling public won't care and to save a couple dollars they will book with an automated service rather than have an agent at their disposal who can help them plan sensibly. The rich get richer and one day your favorite travel agent will be sitting at a big desk punching in numbers on a keyboard for 10 hours a day, if he or she is lucky enough to have a job. Yeah, this is the way the world is these days but you don't have to go along with it just as you don't have to shop at the big mega-stores that have put your friendly local shops out of business. Automated On-line booking sites have more to do with the world of stocks, shareholders and advertising revenue than they do with the world of travel.
While
this site may look like one of those other sites
(in a sloppy unprofessional way since I am one guy
on a laptop and they have an army of nerds
continuously fine-tuning), the links actually go
to a human being (often a close personal friend of
mine) who will respond to you and can answer
your questions and help you with other aspects of
your trip. They also know the hotel and the reason
it may or may not be suitable to you. Most
automated booking websites work with any hotel
that pays into the system and there is nobody who
can answer your questions because they don't know
any of the answers.
Of course there are those who prefer to use the on-line booking sites and nothing I say will change their minds so I have included a link to a site that will compare all the hotel booking sites so that you can compare them and get the best rate and even compare it to the rates you get from the travel agencies. If the rates are even close go with the travel agent because to save a couple euros and not have the services of the agency to find ferry schedules, tickets and answer your questions is kind of dumb. To check Multiple Sites for best hotel rates go to: Matt Barrett's-Hotel Search
I hope you find this useful and have as much fun
using it as I did making this site. In fact I hope
you have a lot more fun.
Matt Barrett
www.greecetravel.com