Like getting your friends to show up to brunch on time, the discovery of a truly excellent product or service with a reasonable price is especially rare. Several retail companies vie for your attention with creative pricing strategies. Everlane, for example, offers some of its clothing in a “Choose What You Pay” section in lieu of sales, explaining exactly where every dollar you spend ends up. And in the travel industry, the new “name-your-own-rate” SCP Hotel is hoping its bet on transparency and accountability pays off.
SCP (Soul Community Planet) recently opened its first hotel in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The eco-friendly property features a 12,000-square-foot fitness center, group fitness classes, a market with locally-sourced (and vegan-forward!) food and drink, 174 rustic rooms with reclaimed wood accents, a communal area with WiFi, and plants galore. Hey, they’re calling it “holistic hospitality” for a reason.
All amenities aside, one of the most remarkable features of the SCP Hotel is its commitment to “fair trade pricing.” If the price you initially agreed to pay doesn’t align with the quality of your experience, you can negotiate a lower rate. Suggested rates fall between $90 and $200 per night, depending on the season.
“We’re committed to delivering exceptional guest experiences at a fair price. We’re confident that if our guests have a great stay at our hotels and pay a fair price, they’ll walk away happy and hopefully tell their friends about our concept,” chief executive of SCP Hotels Ken Cruse told Well+Good. “The price our guests pay should be a function of the experience they’ve had, not an arbitrary value based on a yet-to-be-had experience. We’re not worried about our profitability being eroded as a result of our fair trade pricing. First, we believe that people are fundamentally good, and therefore if we hold up our end of the bargain, our guests will be happy to pay a fair price.”
The hotel’s description is enticing enough, but knowing that you’re safeguarded against feeling #notimpressed is definitely respectable, appreciated, and offers serious peace of mind for anyone who’s had one too many unfortunate hotel stays The fair trade pricing model is soon expanding beyond Colorado Springs, with SCP’s plans to open 30 to 40 more hotels in the United States in the next few years.
“We want to lead by being good, not by being profitable,” Cruse told The New York Times. “We think of profits as a byproduct of the new experience.”
The name-your-own-rate strategy might be relatively new in the hospitality industry, but it already sounds like a win for both the SCP Hotel and its guests. With great risk, as the saying goes, comes great reward.
This new hotel lets you pick the color of the room according to your mood. Or, find out how to dupe a 5-star hotel wellness room at home.
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