Haggling for cheaper a cheaper hotel room just got easier with the launch of GraysEscape, a unique new accommodation website unveiled today by Australia’s largest online auction house, GraysOnline.

The offer based website promises a win-win for Australian and New Zealand hotels and their guests as hotels get to fill empty rooms and travellers can score some heavily discounted rates.

GraysOnline chief executive officer Cameron Poolman said the game-changing website is set to regenerate competition in the booming online reservations market.

Mr Poolman said the site was an exciting and innovative way to boost Australia’s struggling domestic tourism industry by empowering the guests to bargain for hotel stays.

“It’s a way to put more bods in beds by allowing hotels and consumers to bargain with each other one-on-one via the red-face-free medium of a website will really help accommodation and tourism providers and also everyday Australians saddled with the rising cost of living,” Mr Poolman said.

The chief said the site was a way for Australians, who are often embarrassed to haggle, to strike a special, unique rate lower than that on any other accommodation website.

“In the end, the hotel fills an otherwise empty room and the customer scores a top deal,” Mr Poolman stated.

According to Mr Poolman, the GraysEscape.com auction model is based on the concept that ‘a vacant room is revenue lost forever’.

It will allow customers to make offers directly to hotels, with no competitive bidding while hoteliers have three hours to accept an offer or bargain with the customer for another rate.

The system allows guests to accept lower-than-advertised discounted tariffs on a confidential, one-on-one basis without the agreed rates being made public or affecting a property’s brand integrity and commercial arrangements in the market.

“What we are doing, in a dynamic and personal way, is connecting buyers and sellers online for their mutual benefit,” Mr Poolman concluded.