Venice hotel sells rooms for one cent a night after pricing error

Saturday, August 15, 2009

The Crowne Plaza, a four-star Venetian hotel, admitted to mistakenly advertising rooms online for one euro cent a night instead of the correct price of up to 150 euros.

The hotel, which is in the Quarto D’Altino, 25 kilometres from Venice, received 1,400 room bookings from 228 people on the day the advert was posted on the Internet.

The hotel’s sales manager, Fulvio Danesin, said that the hotel first thought the advert had been posted by a hacker. Later, it was discovered that it was a human error made at the hotel’s mother company offices in Atlanta, Georgia.

“Although a pricing error, IHG is committed to honouring the 1-cent rate for guests who have a valid confirmation,” said Monica Smith, the media relations manager for the group.

The hotel is estimated to have lost about 90,000 euros as a result of the mistake.