There’s nothing like booking tickets for the final Formula 1 Grand Prix only to look for accommodation and realize the worst: the hotels in the area have inflated their prices and they’re almost fully booked. Now what? The good news is that we might just have the perfect solution for you.
Enter: the concept of “room sharing”.
While your initial reaction may be confusion, it’s actually a great option. It allows you to stay goodbye to having to settle for dodgy accommodation far from the event and instead affords you the opportunity to stay nearby and in a nicer hotel than you might otherwise have been able to afford. If you have a tendency to book last-minute or usually travel on a budget, it could be the answer to all of your prayers. All you need to do is find a booking platform that allows you to pick the room share option, such as TiCATi. This novel booking site offers a marketplace for extra beds in hotel rooms—or even rooms that aren’t being used for the full duration of stay—during popular events around the world.
It works like this: users can post the room that they have already booked but would like to share, TiCATi verifies the reservation, and other users can then book these travel deals (based on your preferences, TiCATi also helps you to find a room share partner that is like-minded). The ShareRoom function is totally complimentary when a room is booked through TiCATi. Once you are a ShareRoom host, you can post ads, select suitable guests and split the hotel bills. When bookings come from elsewhere, TiCATi will require the confirmation letter of your booking and verify it with the hotel within 24 hours. In this case, there will be a nominal fee incurred for TiCATi to cover the verification service provided.
But it doesn’t end there, for some big events, such as certain Grands Prix or specific motor shows, hotels will impose a compulsory length of stay. This means that the people who don’t want to stay the full six days (for example) yet had to pay for them can then advertise the spare days on TiCATi to other guests who might want them, which means they won’t lose money on days they won’t be using, and other people can get accommodation during busy times.
Simply put, it means that hotels near your event that are “fully booked” with only one person in many of their rooms (or no people) can now accommodate you and, when sharing, at half the price you would have paid if you booked a room in a nice hotel by yourself. In fact, for some extremely popular events where the demand for accommodation is higher than hotels can be accommodated, TiCATi ShareRoom hosts can even accommodate extra people by choosing to add extra beds in their room.
At the end of the day, jet-setting costs a pretty penny but it’s important to not let scarcity thinking or your budget hold you back from your ideal vacation. Here are some of the events in 2018 to look forward to where the room sharing option just might be what you needed to turn your travel dreams into realities:
- The Holi Festival—Mumbai, India
The ever-popular Holi Festival is one of unity and vibrant colors. This annual celebration is marked by people in India who throw color on each other to show how the colors unite them and erase their differences. An incredible spectacle, these festivals are held in many cities all over the world, but it’s not quite like the original in Mumbai. Want to spice up your life with a bit of color? Then make sure you are in Mumbai on the 2nd of March.
- The 2018 Winter Olympics—Pyeongchang, South Korea
Don’t let fully booked rooms keep you from experiencing the astonishing sporting events at this year’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea from the 9th to the 25th of February followed by the awe-inspiring Paralympics from the 9th to the 18th of March.
- The Eurovision Song Contest 2018— Lisbon, Portugal
Attention music fans and singing contest aficionados, this one is for you! Don’t miss the Eurovision Song Contest which will be held in Lisbon from the 8th to the 12th of May this year.
- The Royal Wedding— Windsor, England
The internet practically broke when Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced their much-anticipated engagement so it’s unsure what will happen on their actual wedding day. Don’t risk missing out on this event by booking a sneaky trip to England to witness it (or as much of it as possible) for yourself. The wedding will be held at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle on the 19th of May.
- The 2018 FIFA World Cup—Russia
Even people who don’t like soccer become huge fanatics during the FIFA World Cup and there’s really nothing better than watching a match in real life amongst fellow supporters and friendly rivals. This year, head to Russia to be right in the middle of the action. The FIFA World Cup takes place between the 14th of June and the 15th of July. Venues: Kaliningrad, Kazan, Krasnodar, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Saint Petersburg, Samara, Saransk, Sochi, Volgograd, Yaroslavl, and Yekaterinburg.
If you are looking to head to some of the best events of 2018 and stay as close to the event as you can in the most cost-effective way, then head over to TiCATi and book your dream vacation.
Let's travel green! 