In this instance, the poor populace in question are those travellers trying to keep a few more bucks in their pockets to stay in the wild longer when they are Out & About (excusing the pun) living the Jack Kerouac – Willie Nelson version of the American dream, “On the Road Again.”

The first problem you will encounter when searching the web is the definition, or search term, in this case the words “cheap hotel”. For some, especially the Godzillas of the travel industry (the internet travel and hotel search engine sites), “cheap” merely means less than rack rate, even if that rate runs into several hundreds of dollars. How¬ever, most travellers when they enter “cheap hotel” into Google, Yahoo or the author’s favourite, Dogpile, are actually looking for a hotel that is a rung or two up the ladder from a guesthouse or a hostel, but at the lower end of the scale for prices.

In fact most of the Godzilla internet sites would prefer you not to book these cheaper hotels, as they make more money from the more expensive options. Typically they operate a business model whereby they agree a preferred rate with the larger hotels (below the rack rate), add on their own fees, and are still able to offer an attractive rate to the customer. The fees tend to be proportionate to the price of the room, hence the higher the price, the higher the fee.

Back in the day, the dream was that the inter¬net would level the play¬ing field, allowing the little guy to compete with the big corporations. Alas the dream has been slipping away but with web 2.0 it is beginning to slant back in the other direction. One way to do battle with the Godzilla without reverting to tanks and airplanes is to use the power of web 2.0 and search the myriad blogs and forums to seek out the best cheap hotel deals. In fact there is a trend among the cheap hotels to forgo the preferred rates, hold the line on their prices and make the preferred internet rates available only on their own websites.

Savvy travellers will therefore often look on the big sites to find hotels or areas that appeal to them, and then try to get a better rate from the hotels’ own websites. This is often harder than it might sound, however, as the hotel’s sites are often buried several pages down the search engines’ rankings, even if you enter the hotel name directly. Persevere in your quest, though, and you may well be rewarded with another part of the American dream, more folding money in your pocket.

Another strategy is to feed Godzilla a snack and book one night only, especially if you are arriving into a new town late, then try to find a cheaper room the next day. This works well most of the time, and the hidden benefit is that because you fed the beast you might get to keep your room, as most hotels are reluctant to give you the boot. Admit¬tedly some will still throw you out, but many will have a last minute cancellation, and some will even call around and find a suitable room for you. The downside of this strategy is you might get stuck paying more than you want - this happens sometimes in South East Asia, but the odds are generally in your favour.
 
The thing that I always liked about the Godzilla movies is that the little guys all have airplanes and tanks. Wouldn’t it be cool to drive a tank around when you are looking for a room (this is Cambodia after all); who is going to say no to you! I wonder though, do you think they would charge extra for parking?