Comparing hotels with prices, locations, and features scattered across multiple websites can be really overwhelming. Especially when planning a wedding, you need to make sure a bad hotel encounter isn’t ruining your special day. Now, some hotels offer the perfect views but have limited parking, many have great amenities but are too far from the wedding venue, and others come with strict policies around group bookings. You really have to factor all of this in when choosing one.
This Hotel Comparison Template by WordLayouts will help you compare all your options, side by side, and make hotel selection easier for already-too-busy couples and wedding planners. It lays out all relevant details – room types, rates, add-ons, locations, and booking policies – and has a visually easy-to-scan layout.
Let’s break down the template, section by section, and see how it will actually help:
When is This Template Used (and what does it help with?)
Hotel comparisons come a little after venue selection, and once guest logistics begin taking shape. These comparisons are helpful for managing a multi-day destination wedding, when planning a local wedding with out-of-town guests, or even if you are planning for a dream trip and need to select hotels.
You have a lot of moving pieces and decisions to make at this stage of wedding planning, so this hotel comparison sheet helps you understand:
- Which hotels align with both your requirements and budget
- Which booking channel is offering a better deal/value
- Which hotels are logistically better and practical for your guests (only the couple can make this call since you know guest comfort expectations better than a planner)
- What will be the overall guest experience in each hotel
- If there are any hotel policies that affect room block decisions
- If you need to arrange transportation for the guests or not
We designed this hotel comparison template to answer all these questions. Let’s see what the key factors it compares are…
What’s In Our Hotel Comparison Template?
WordLayout’s hotel comparison template is an Excel-based (and Google Sheets) worksheet. At the top, the template has 5 basic information fields. You’ll write the budget range you’ve set for the hotel stay, the number of guests that will be staying, check-in and check-out dates, and the duration of your stay.
You’ll fill in the fields manually, but the Stay Duration will be calculated automatically by relying on your check-in and check-out dates. If either date is missing, the cell remains blank to make sure there are no errors in calculations, and the number feeds correctly into cost calculations.
Following this, we created 5 tables to help you figure out which of your hotel options will work best for your big day.
Table 1: Hotel Profile
As you can tell, the first table lists all the hotels in competition in column 1. The next columns for location, contact number, check-in time, check-out time, and distance to the location help you assess how feasible staying in the hotel is. Does it even align with your pre- and post-wedding activities and wedding day schedule? You need a hotel that’s not too far from the venue and airport/a main point in the city.
Next, you’ll fill in whether the hotel is available or not available around your wedding date for booking from the dropdown menu in each cell. The booking status is perhaps one of the most important columns here.
The next two columns also come with dropdown menus:
- You can select official star ratings from one star to five stars in the dropdown (based on how the hotel is perceived among the general public).
- Dropdown options for customer reviews include Good, Fair, and Poor.
Dropdowns actually help with maintaining a consistent structure across your comparison sheet. Instead of typing text, you save time and select from standardized options that keep filtering and sorting clean. Read about the Configuration Sheet later on to learn more about how these options work.
Lastly, the booking link column tells you where you can book the hotel (website or through a booking service). That is, if and when you finalize it. And then there’s a notes column with text space for you to note what extra or stand-out-ish features the hotel offers.
Also, the “Hotel Name” column is an anchor for all other tables in this template. If you update a hotel name here, it will automatically reflect across every table in the sheet. This keeps things synchronized without any manual edits needed!
Filter options that make scanning data easy
Each column here includes a filter dropdown arrow that sorts rows for a specific selection. Let’s see an example. Say you just want to look at hotels that are available on your wedding dates; you’ll click on the arrow in the Booking Status column, select “Available”, and click “Ok.” You will only see the rows (hotels) that are available now.
Similarly, if you want to see hotels that are available and have a 12:00 PM check-out time (because that’ll be easier for your family and friends to manage), you’ll put filters on both Booking Status and Check Out Time columns. And the template will filter and display only the hotels that are available on your wedding days and have a check-out time of 12:00 PM.
The entire table is filter-enabled; if you duplicate the sheet, all of these filters will also carry over to the new one as well.
Table 2: Hotel facilities and amenities
The next section allows you to compare each hotel option based on the guest comfort and convenience it offers. The template has already created a list of usual facilities. You can mark whether each hotel offers room service, Wi-Fi, breakfast, dinner, a pool, a gym, accessibility for the disabled, shuttle service, and if it’s pet-friendly.
For all these columns, our template has simple checkboxes for Yes and No. The Others and Notes columns at the end have free text space where you can write any other amenity a hotel offers or any specific notes that may help you decide.
This table is especially helpful if you have elderly in the family or if these services are important for you and your loved ones.
Table 3: Room features
Going a little more into detail, this next section helps you compare the room facilities across your shortlisted hotels. You can record whether the hotel has a suite, penthouse, premium, or classic room types, what size the room is, and what the view and occupancy are like for each. Our template also has check boxes for Yes and No again for inclusions. Tick yes or no for AC, TV, and mini fridge here. The Other and Key Features columns list any extra room features that the hotel has. It could be anything, from a fireplace to a mini bar to a balcony or luxury suite with a panoramic view.
From this table, you can decide where the couple will stay, which hotels will work best for the bridal party, and whether certain guests need upgraded rooms.
Table 4: Pricing and policies
This is where your comparison table becomes financially meaningful (also where a lot of couples actually make the decision). Instead of just comparing nightly rates here, we also calculate the total true cost of the stay based on the duration of the stay, the nightly rate, and additional costs.
Oftentimes, you see different rates on the website and other hotel booking platforms. You will have to take all available and relevant sources of quotes into account to get the real picture of what to expect. We built three columns for three sources (you can remove or add columns according to your research), and the template calculates the total projected cost automatically for each quote source.
A preset formula calculates the total cost per stay by multiplying the number of nights you wish to stay at the hotel by the nightly rate and then adding the extra fees to it. It calculates on its own.
If you don’t fill in the nightly rate or stay duration, the formula will return a blank instead of showing a #VALUE error or an incorrect total. This keeps the template from miscalculating totals.
And last but not least, this section of the template also has a column for noting down any remarks about the cancellation policy of each hotel.
Table 5: Benefits and drawbacks
After the pricing and policies table, the template includes another table where you can evaluate hotels based on their qualitative features. For instance, if there are any special discounts being offered on the dates you have selected, or if the hotel is in a very busy location, etc.
To help you capture all such details, we have columns for any special deals or discounts offered by the hotel, complimentary benefits, nearby attractive points, and a comments section. All of these are to be filled manually, so you can fully customize them based on your preferences.
This section is pretty useful, actually (though it seems just extra information). Because sometimes a hotel may not be cheap, but it offers benefits such as complimentary services or a flexible cancellation policy that truly justify the high price. So it’s best to see, in depth, what each hotel has to offer.
The Configuration Sheet
The configuration sheet controls several dropdown menus in the main sheet. If you want to customize any value in any dropdown—Room Type, Bedding, Customer Reviews, or Booking Status columns—you simply update the values in the corresponding tables here, and they’ll reflect in the main sheet automatically.
The sheet also has a macro-enabled reset button that deletes all user-entered data (keeps the automations intact) from the main sheet. Use it when you want a fresh comparison.
Your wedding is a shared experience for everyone who travels to celebrate with you. And the right hotel choice will mean smoother mornings, relaxed guests, easier transportation, and fewer last-minute questions.
Download WordLayout’s Hotel Comparison Template, compare your options wisely, and pick the hotel that truly fits your wedding plans. Make your accommodation decision confidently and see how seamless your celebration will go!
