There’s a simple rule of thumb you need to bear in mind when looking for a hotel in Venice – what is it you actually require from the place you’re going to be staying in? This may seem extremely obvious, but my experience is that people often forget this basic principle.
So how do we go about answering this question? What we need to do is develop a list of features that can be found in the Venice hotels that you find in your online search. Once we have this list, we’ll be much better able to choose a hotel that best matches what we’re ideally looking for.
Starting at the beginning, you’ll obviously have a reason to be staying at a hotel in the first place. There are plenty of possible reasons here – visiting people you know, attending a function etc. – but the two we find the most frequent are for a break or holiday, or for work purposes.
The next factor, then, is to decide whereabouts in Venice will be the ideal location for your accommodation. For example, do you want to be in the centre of town, near to nightlife, near to any sights you wish to see, near to where you’ll be working, or any other issues that spring to mind.
Next you’ll want to be thinking about what sort of facilities you require from the hotel. It’s a long time since you’d have to check whether a hotel would have en suite bathrooms or not, as most nowadays do, but you could potentially save some expense if this isn’t important to you. You might also be interested in there being a bar and restaurant on the premises.
Lots of hotels also now come with facilities that would have been unheard of a few years ago, including some with their own gym and swimming pool. If you want to keep on top of your emails or just chat with friends on Facebook, a wireless internet connection might also be important to you.
Having mentioned money, this is a very obvious issue that you’ll want to address. No point looking for five star luxury if you simply can’t afford to pay the amount it would cost per night. Venice certainly has its fair share of hotels to choose from in all price brackets, so you should easily find something suitable with just a few minute’s investigation.
So now you know roughly the area you want to be in, and the facilities you’ll want from your hotel and the surrounding area, it’s time to look at all the hotels that Venice has to offer you, and make your decision according to the criteria you’ve just established for the ideal place.
Finally, of course, you’ll need to include the dates of your stay. Many hotels will not be available for all the days you want, so you’ll want to check against each of them to ensure you can get the hotel you desire when it comes to booking online.
Tris Jackson is a hotel booking expert with many years of experience in helping people find their ideal hotel accommodation.