Room types: rooms and suites, and how to sell each one

Every room of one type should be close enough to the others that a guest who books it gets what the photos showed. Most hotels build a ladder, from the room most guests book up to the suite, with the price rising at each step.

• Standard or classic: the hotel's basic room, usually the one it sells most.
• Superior, deluxe or premium: larger, better placed or better furnished. These words mean whatever your hotel makes them mean, so say in the room's description what the difference is.
• Twin or double: two single beds or one double bed. Guests and booking sites search by beds, so this matters more than the name.
• Family room: space and beds for two adults and children, often with an extra bed.
• Suite: a bedroom with a separate sitting area, sold as one room. A junior suite usually has its sitting area in the same room.
• Room with a view, a balcony or a garden: the same room with something guests pay more for, worth a type of its own when it really is different.

A few types that are clearly different sell more easily than many that look alike. If two types share their photos and their size, guests take the cheaper one.

The Ministry of Tourism's checklist for classifying hotels describes a suite as two rooms or two room bays, with a bedroom and a separate sitting area, one bathroom and one powder room. It asks the higher star categories for at least one suite, and says a suite must be sold as one room.

So a large room with a sofa is not a suite. Call it a deluxe room or a junior suite if the sitting area isn't separate. A guest who booked a suite and finds a big bedroom says so at check-in, and again in the review.

India's star classification is voluntary, but its checklist is the nearest thing to an official measure of a room, and guests read a room's size as a sign of what they are paying for.

• The area may include the vestibule and other covered space inside the room, but not an outdoor verandah or balcony.
• A hotel needs at least 10 lettable rooms, each with an outside window or ventilation, to be classified at all.
• For hotels built before 1 January 2012, the checklist lets a bathroom be up to a tenth smaller, as long as the room and bathroom together reach a total set for the category.
• Heritage hotels have no set room or bathroom size: the Ministry judges their ambience and comfort instead.

Measure each room type and put its size on every booking site. Booking.com and Agoda both have a field for it, and a size in the listing answers the question before a guest has to ask it.

Each site asks you to choose a room's type and name from its own list, so that guests see the same words in every language. A name you make up is for your own reference only.

1. 1On Booking.com, sign in to the extranet and go to “Property”, then “Room details” or “Property layout”.
2. 2To add a room type, select “Create a new room”, enter its details and select “Continue”, then add photos with “Upload photos”.
3. 3To change one, click “Edit”, update the room type, room name, bed options, occupancy or bathroom details, and click “Continue”.
4. 4Set the new room's availability and prices in the “Calendar”, and add its size, facilities and amenities.

Booking.com says guests see standard room names from its list, and custom names only show to you in the extranet. To rename a room that has upcoming bookings, it asks you to write to it from the extranet's “Inbox”, choosing “Property details” and then “Room details”. A room can only be deleted when it has no upcoming reservations.

On Agoda's Partner Portal, rooms are under “Property”, then “Room setup”, where “Create” adds one: you choose its name from a dropdown, the number of rooms of that type and the guests it takes, and you can keep an internal name guests don't see. On MakeMyTrip and Goibibo, you describe each room's beds, occupancy and amenities when you list, and enter a sell rate for each room and occupancy under “Rates & Inventory”.

If you use a channel manager, add the room on each site first, then map it in the channel manager, so the right prices reach the right room.

Each step on the ladder needs its own photos, its size and a plain line on what is different. A step guests can't see is one they won't pay for. When a cheaper type keeps selling out first, its price is probably too low against the next step.

• Every room type on every site has its own photos, not the same ones as the type below it.
• The size, beds and maximum number of guests match the room itself, on every site.
• A type means the same on every site: a deluxe room on Booking.com is the deluxe room on MakeMyTrip.
• Prices keep the same order everywhere, so the suite is never cheaper than the deluxe room on one site.
• Your own website shows every type with the same names, so a guest comparing it with a booking site recognises the room.
• Reviews saying a room was smaller than its photos, or not what was booked, point to the type to fix first.