Are London hotels as expensive as people say?

While the common perception is that London hotels are pricey, is this really true?

“Expensive” means something different to everyone. Often you can spend a lot of money and think it was brilliant, while at other times just the opposite is true. Cheap is not always best.

What then does the hard data say? London apparently has the 5th most expensive hotels in the world, after Moscow, New York, Dubai and Venice (source: Hotels.com survey).

An alternative study by Hogg Robinson indicates that hotel prices in London are in 10th place, behind cities such as New York and Mumbai as well as quite a few others.

The bad news is that London is pricey because there is plenty of leisure and business demand to visit the UK’s capital city. This unfortunately keeps prices high throughout the year.

The good news is that there is great value in London and London hotels IF you know where to look. The key is to search independent blogs (like the one linked at the bottom) and NOT rely on hotel or booking websites which are only interested in selling you a room.

But that’s not the whole story. An Economist survey analysed the world’s most pricey cities for everything (not only hotels) and found Oslo and Paris for example to be even dearer than London.

Hence although London (and its hotels) may appear quite pricey to visitors, this must be understood in comparison with other benchmark cities.

The most important advice is to always book your hotel in London after searching out the best price on the internet. If you book based on just one website’s pricing, you will almost always be missing out on the best rate.

Also, please don’t be fooled by “best online rate guarantees”. In practice these are covered by lots of legalese and you have very little recourse if you end up paying over the odds.

This article’s writer is a London hotel market “insider” who personally meets hoteliers and regularly compares online hotel rates for London. There is no doubt that there is wide variation between London hotel rates between different websites so you can easily lose money.

The solution is to use a one-click “price comparison” tool to search lots of different websites at the same time. This allows you to make sure that you are getting the best possible hotel rate in London at any given time. It now takes no longer to search 30+websites with one click than it does to search one website!

The blog linked below has a price comparison tool which checks dozens of the world’s best-known hotel reservation websites to find you the cheapest rate for your London hotel.

A hotel meta-search engine lets you feel secure that you’re getting the best possible deal. It also means you’re left with more money to enjoy London’s amazing bars, restaurants and theatres!