Hotels Take Cue From Restaurants, Launch Hotel Week

(MoneyWatch)  Taking a cue from the restaurant industry, a group of San Diego, Calif., hotels have organized their own San Diego Hotel Week, offering discounts on room rates, hotel restaurants and other attractions.

And just like recent restaurant weeks around the country, San Diego Hotel Week is actually two weeks, from Nov. 13 to Nov. 26. But unlike restaurants, which offer set-price menus that fall into specific price categories, these hotels are offering all kinds of different deals, including 50 percent off room rates, room-and-dining packages, and hotel credit deals. They're all over the map, with no cohesive promotion to bind them together.

While a hotel week is a good idea in theory, if there isn't a unifying deal among the hotels, then it's just a repackaged promotion. For example, the Hilton San Diego Bayfront is offering a stay two nights, get the third night free deal, but that's a deal the hotel already had before the advent of Hotel Week. There should be at least one unique package available during just the two weeks of the promotion, or else what's the point? It's confusing for potential guests and doesn't make the promotion special enough.

Update: I subsequently learned that San Diego Hotel Week was actually organized by marketing professional Karine Gornes and Omar Haddedou, owner of New Marketing Online. They teamed up to bring the hotels, restaurants and other local attractions together under the "Hotel Week" banner.