Maybe you’ve seen it while traveling for work. Since the pandemic, many hotels across the U.S. have moved to an optional housekeeping model, and travelers who want their rooms cleaned every day have to say so instead of assuming it will be done automatically.
But figuring out how to communicate a daily request to make your bed or change your towels can be a maddening job to crack.
Abhishek Singh, who travels frequently as a technology analyst, recalls the first time he learned that housekeeping was now an option. In the spring of 2022, while attending a conference in Seattle, he returned to his room at 9:30 pm and, after a 12-hour walk, found that the bed had not been made and “towels were scattered all over the floor.” He called the front desk and learned that the hotel was a Marriott and did not provide daily housekeeping service. When he tried to make the request the next morning, he said, he was rebuffed. At other hotels, Singh said he requested housekeeping service at 10 a.m. every day but was told he should request by 9 a.m. to get accommodation.
A Marriott spokesperson told wealth They were unable to comment on this specific incident and “in the United States and Canada, the frequency of housekeeping services varies by hotel category, and guests can personalize their housekeeping preferences during the booking process.”
singh told wealth Tired of arguing with hotel management, he developed a trick where instead of booking one room for multiple nights, he would book two rooms, one night each, and check out during the day to attend his meetings.
“I only travel with one carry-on bag; I just check out in the morning and check in,” he said. At one point he confessed to the front desk and offered to stay in the same room if they could clean his room that day, which was against normal policy. (He said they agreed.)
But Singer remains frustrated by what he sees as deception by hotels that charged him $200 to $500 a night, though he remembers staying at an $800-a-night hotel in New York that also wasn’t cleaned overnight. .
“My logic is, I’m paying the same rate per night as someone who’s only staying one night. That person gets a clean and tidy room, why don’t I get that?” Singer told wealth. “They didn’t give me a big discount for five nights,” he said.
Courtesy of Abhishek Singh
The hospitality industry is back to where it was before, but things are different
Across the country, travel is on the rise. According to industry data, hotel occupancy rates this year are almost the same as in 2019, and room rates are well above last year’s levels.
Singer said he has not been paying less than $400 a night in the past six months as travel resumes in full force. Singer has frequent flyer status with both Hilton and Marriott hotels, but that status earned him the only apology from management when he complained — no change in policy.
He also chastises hotels that describe reduced cleaning as eco-friendly, calling it “virtue signaling,” he said. “I’m not even asking you about changing the towels, just basic things like making the bed and taking out the trash.”
Hotel staff also reject the idea that less cleaning would help the environment. Lucy Biswas, a housekeeper at the Hilton in Washington, D.C., said when two or three guests stay in a room and it’s only cleaned at check-out, it means more time, more cleaning products and tougher jobs. According to Biswas’s union, Unite Here Local 25, at the height of the pandemic, hotels sometimes had just six housekeepers to clean a full building, instead of the 40 housekeepers a typical day required before the outbreak.
“When they leave a room for three days, it smells like garbage and is all over the floor,” Biswas said. “When a family comes in, there’s a lot of sawdust, syrup, dust or crumbs on the table… Sometimes we don’t even finish decorating the rooms because they’re so dirty.”
In Washington, D.C., housekeeping has become a political issue—the City Council passed a Interim law Daily cleaning required; hotel staff hope the law becomes permanent.Las Vegas passed similar law during pandemic but withdrew requirements earlier this year.
A Hilton spokesperson told wealth The company plans to resume daily room service this fall at “all Hilton luxury, full-service, lifestyle and Embassy Suites hotels worldwide,” adding: “Guests staying at key-service and extended-stay hotels in the U.S. and Canada Automated housekeeping will be provided every other day, or more frequent service can be requested by visiting the front desk as needed.”
Most industry observers believe hotels will resume routine room service once necessary. “At some point, consumers will no longer be willing to pay premium prices for hotels that no longer have room service,” said Sean O’Neill, hotels editor at travel website Skift.
For some travelers, the day can’t come soon enough.
“I clean myself — and I think Airbnb does the same,” Singer said. “But with hotels, there’s some assumption that you’re paying for more than just four walls and a bathroom. What’s the extra cost that I’m paying more for?”
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