Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[shvetsov2005]

" With very visible low prices, hotel operators found it difficult to keep prices high with high margin customers".
What does high margin customers mean here?

Alexander.

[lotus]

Hi Alexander,

The sentence would be clearer if it read:

"With very visible low prices, hotel operators found it difficult to maintain high prices with (their) high (profit) margin customers".

Basically, the sentence is saying that because of competition, prices are getting low. Because they are high class hotels, their profit margins are high (they need to charge a lot to make a lot to maintain their hotels). Their customers are high margin customers (meaning they are willing to pay a lot, maintaining the hotels' high profit margin). Now, with the low prices going around town, these hotels may lose some of their high (profit) margin customers.


--lotus