Hotel Industry Back to Normal After Hectic Days
As expected the eruption of the volcano on Iceland had immediate influence on the travel industry. Many travelers were forced to cancel their planned trip. Almost half of EasyToBook.com's daily bookings in the affected areas were canceled where normally almost no cancellations are made for the same day.
The last minute bookings (same book date as stay date) on the other hand went up by 400%!
A dilemma arose for accommodations that offer rooms that cannot be canceled or changed after booking (so called "Non-Refundable Rooms" which are cheaper than regular rooms which can be canceled up to 24 hours in advance). They either had to charge the visitors that couldn't make it to their travel destination, or deviate from their own rules. Some travelers are still not sure if their insurance covers a natural cause like the volcano eruption.
On the other hand there were also plenty of travelers blocked on their way home, with nowhere to go once they arrived at the airport for their return flight. Although all these travelers were forced to stay in their travel destination, travel agents such as EasyToBook.com did not see usurious rates for their hotels in their records. Some of the hotels that EasyToBook.com offers on its website even offered stranded travelers free accommodation in their rooms! EasyToBook.com itself scheduled more service agents in the customer service department to handle all the extra calls coming in during these days.
The amount of people looking for different travel routes to get to their destinations grew of course. The search on hotels near public transport stations has never been as high as in this time. Train station pages on the EasyToBook.com website like the Gare du Nord in Paris, Amsterdam Central Station
