no vacancy signs

Phillip Pessar

Smartphones And Motel Chains Are Killing The ‘No Vacancy’ Sign

There used to be a quick way to tell from the outside of a model whether there were rooms available for the evening as you drove down a highway: either the “NO” on the establishment’s “NO VACANCY” sign was illuminated, or it wasn’t. Plenty of these signs exist and are still in use, but they’re fading (sometimes literally) as travelers would prefer to use a smartphone app to book rooms instead of zooming down the highway looking for signs. [More]