We arrived at the hotel, only to be told that the room, we had reserved was not available for us; but that we could spend the night in an unrenovated room, then move into our room the next day. I didn't care about the quality of the room. We were just going to lay down and go to bed; however, the hotel did the same thing to us the last time. In addition, I didn't look forward to unpacking bunch of stuff and having to repack the next morning.
The young staff explained various motivations for our treatment. Because management receives bonuses for filling the hotel up to capacity, overbooking increases their chance of collecting the bonuses. We were also told that most of the booking is done by the web and the company does not shut off booking when the reservations overflow.
After a long argument with the manager, he gave us a more lucid explanation. He said that many people want to stay at the hotel, and that we were not important enough to be of any concern for him. He was right. We aren't important. And his concern is increasing his income.
The minor inconveniences and ripoffs that we experience are nothing compared to what most of the world experiences. They do, however, illustrate the nastiness embedded in the capitalist mode of production. As a trained economists, long tutored in the ideology of capitalism maximizing utils, I am amused by my educational experience.
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
530 898 5321 fax 530 898 5901 http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com