California's $19 luxury hotel room without a bed

Mike Hodgkinson checks into a recession-busting $19-a-night room at San Diego's luxury Rancho Bernardo Inn, for fine dining, hot tub, pool ... and a night on his own airbed

Destination California is not its usual robust self. Hotel foreclosures are up, room occupancy is down, and according to a report released by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAECD), "tourist activity literally fell off the table" at the end of last year. The picture is notably bleak in San Diego, where the average daily room rate fell by 13.1% in the first half of 2009.

Despite that decline, it still came as a surprise to find a vertiginous 91.6% reduction in the rate at San Diego's Rancho Bernardo Inn — a high-end suburban resort north of the city on Interstate 15. Through a special deal launched in June, then repeated to cover late August and early September, the hotel offered a room normally listed around $219 per night at a remarkably low $19 (£11.50). They called it the "Survivor Package", and naturally, there was a catch: no lights, no toilet paper, no towels ... and not even a bed.

The Rancho Bernardo Inn, it should be pointed out, is no backwoods flea-pit. Quite the opposite. There are antique stone fountains, red Spanish tiles and brickwork, super-sized butterflies in the skies, floppy-eared rabbits on the turf, rosemary and jasmine bushes everywhere. With its top-notch spa and a fine-dining restaurant (El Bizcocho), it represents a picture-perfect version of the southern Californian good life — where happiness is measured in manicured fairways, and bright is the flash of pristine white sports sock against sun-dried, walnut-coloured leg.

So what does 19 bucks get you? In my room, a free-standing tent had been set up in the space where the bed would normally go, and two strips of yellow "caution" tape were plastered over the (disabled) air conditioning switch. All the light bulbs had been removed, but I had planned for that in advance by packing, along with an inflatable bed, a bedside reading lamp. Behind the original headboard there was an artful spray of dried twigs — an original interior design feature which fortuitously doubled as a woodland accent to the tent. The room's slatted windows overlooked that ultimate symbol of wild nature subordinated to man's will: the golf course.

The $19 Survivor Package doesn't allow the traditional hotel pleasure of stealing off with tiny bottles of shampoo and mouthwash, because there aren't any, but you do get access to the swimming pools and hot tubs (the spa costs extra, though). To keep on-site dining costs low, you can munch on a reasonably priced thin-crust pizza at the hotel's friendly, tartan-carpeted sports bar. On top of the $19, there's also a self-parking fee, a resort charge, and tax, bringing the actual billed total to just under $40 (£24) — but by any standards, that's still exceptionally low.

There is the option to upgrade the package depending on your budget – for an extra $20 you can get the bed back, for example. But if you want the pillows, sheets, linens lights and toiletries you're looking at $139. If you're simply not feeling peckish you can miss breakfast and save $20.

The ruse was the brainchild of general manager, John Gates, who ran the initial June promotion as a way of drawing attention to the hotel's presence on Twitter, and it looks like his strategy has paid off as a marketing ploy. Thanks in part to national TV coverage, the August/September version of his package sold out in six days. The hotel business in California may not be out of the woods, but at Rancho Bernardo Inn the recession's bitter pill has, apparently, been sugared.