Pack your own chocolates: Room rates plunge, and hotels cut goodies

What's keeping hotel chains up at night? Falling room rates, of course. Across North America, revenue per available room fell 19.3 percent in the first six months of the year, as rates and occupancy both tumbled, according to a new report from consultancy Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.

But a hotelier's nightmare is a leisure traveler's dream. In August, rooms at three-star hotels in New York City -- the country's priciest lodging market -- went begging at an average of $133 a night: a 26 percent drop over last year, says discount travel site Hotwire.