I am coming to India soon and was wondering if I need to book my hotel stay in advance for all the cities I am visiting or is it Okay if I book as I go? How easy or difficult is it for a foreigner to find a hotel in India? I do not want anything special and a clean and comfortable place would be alright for me. The main places which I intend to visit are: Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Mumbai, Goa, Kochi and Kerala.
If you are going to reach your destination like 10am or around that time then you will have time to bargain and go look around at different hotels with room for bargaining but if you are going to reach at odd hours then it is best to have an advance booking.
You need not to book in advance in any of the places you mentioned above. Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Mumbai, Goa, Kochi and Kerala are major tourist destinations and have many options to choose from, in these cities you will not find it difficult to get a hotel in peak season too
Agreed that these places have plenty of hotels but with the new Visa on arrival will ensure a lot more visitors who would obviously need more hotel rooms in future resulting in higher hotel room occupancy and the prices too so I would be a little cautious and book in advance. You get good deals on some of these hotel portals.
I find it much cheaper to book hotels online on hotels.com or booking.com etc as compared to trying to bargaining at the front desk. They always have stupid prices printed on their rate card and even a 50% discount would sometimes not bring the prices anywhere near to what they offer on online portals.
I agree that we can get better deals on some websites but I always prefer to see my bed, washroom and location of the hotel before paying the amount. I always prefer to keep my options open
