Change "Hotels & Loyalty Programs" name? [Now changed to "Hotels & Places to Stay"]
 

Thanks, first, for the Alternative Lodging Services forum. Good stuff.

However, it wasn't immediately intuitive to me that it lives in the Hotels and Loyalty Programs category, given that the likes of AirBnB, VRBO, and others generally are not hotels and lack loyalty programs.

Question - should the forum category name be changed? Perhaps to something like "Hotel and Lodging Programs and Services"

Note that this also aligns somewhat to Dovster's question about FT's core mission. "Loyalty Programs" in the category name was intentional, as it was focused on the respective points-earning programs. However, with the rise of alternative lodgings, greater brand agnosticity and price sensitivity, the Loyalty Programs designation seems outdated.

The word lodging encompasses hotels.

I had considered proposing "Lodging Services and Programs" but thought that might not be obvious enough.

Otherwise, I take it you agree with the general proposal of a name change?

Not necessarily, but if it's going to be changed, saying hotels and lodging is redundant.

How about "Hotels and Alternative Lodging Services"?

That makes so much sense. ^

+1 from me. Gets the point across more succinctly than what I came up with.

No word to be included about the hotel loyalty programs?

Important to leave the word "Hotel" in there - I'm sure more and more non English-native speakers are joining FT and the word 'Hotel' would come across clearer than "Lodging".

Summarizing the above posts, something like:
"Hotels, Alternative Lodging Services and Loyalty Programs"

This is a very interesting discussion. I am following along, and do agree we likely need to make a change.

Hotels, Hotel Loyalty Programs, and Alternative Lodging Services.

Assuming of course that these alternative lodging services don't come up with loyalty systems ;)

I had entertained the idea of that happening ahead, but are we there yet?

Hotels, ALS and their loyalty programs.

No we're not. So does the title then become a placeholder for what is (possibly) to come, or do we then have a second round of discussions on what to call it? Either way, I'm in :D

To some people, the word alternative has "countercultural" connotations... not mainstream rental lodging.