In the three years since the U.S. leisure industry was almost wiped out by the epidemic, it is now making a comeback: hotels are fully booked, room prices in some areas are almost twice what they were before the epidemic, and industry profits have recently hit a record high. .
Many travelers and workers complained that what wasn’t coming back was the service. During the pandemic, many hotels have drastically reduced room service—initially as a health measure. But with the public health emergency officially over and hotel occupancy soaring to pre-pandemic levels, room service in many places is still lagging. In fact, the frequency of hotel room service has become a major point of conflict between restaurants and the staff they employ (not to mention their guests).
Now, many tourists tell wealth Hotels consider room service to be “flexible” or “available upon request.” Cheaper chains preset cleaning every two or three days instead of every day. What started as a health measure has become a major money-saver for hotels, which have struggled to hire enough cleaning staff to meet pre-pandemic levels.
An analysis of federal data by Unite Here, the union that represents many restaurant workers, shows hotel staffing (relative to occupancy) has fallen to a 30-year low since the pandemic began and has not yet recovered.
Last month, some 60,000 members of the Nevada Culinary Workers Union, which represents housekeepers, bartenders and servers, voted overwhelmingly to strike, with wages and staffing being the main points of contention between the union and employers. Union members picketed hotels owned by MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment on the Las Vegas Strip last week but have not yet launched a strike.
For Xochitl Mendez, a housekeeper who has worked at MGM Resorts for the past 14 years, cleanliness is a safety issue.
Provided by Local Culinary Alliance 226
“The rooms are not cleaned every day, and every day we see very, very annoyed guests. They get angry and insult us,” Mendez, 55, told us wealth. “Sometimes we don’t want to go into the room because the guest is so angry.”
On one occasion, she said, an angry guest yelled at her and threw a magazine as she entered the room, shouting: “I paid so much, why hasn’t this room been cleaned?”
Same price, less effort
To be sure, optional cleaning of accommodations didn’t start with the pandemic—hotels began offering guests the option over the past decade Skip towel cleaning or cleaning in exchange for perks, usually drinks or points. But the pandemic has exacerbated this trend. Hotels that reduce room cleaning “find that most of the time, most customers don’t miss it, and in addition, due to a lack of labor and rising labor prices, hotel owners don’t have to pay for housekeeping at all,” C. Patrick Scholes, Truist Securities Managing Director, Leisure & Accommodation Equity Research.
“I think the customer is the loser here – prices are going back across the board and even higher, but you’re getting less service,” he said.
Before the pandemic, hotels needed about 40% occupancy to break even on costs, but with less cleaning, that number is closer to 30%, Scholes said. That’s one reason he thinks daily housekeeping, at least for mid-range and lower-end hotels, is a thing of the past. “If it doesn’t happen now, it won’t happen.”
Even if employees are paid less, hotels can save a lot of money by reducing room service. A 100-room property that paid workers $10 an hour to clean the rooms every three days could save $110,000 a year, according to rough calculations by Bernstein analyst Richard Clark. Labor costs. (In many high-cost cities, such as New York or Las Vegas, hotel housekeepers earn much more than this, especially if they are represented by a union.)
The hotel said it will adjust its cleaning schedule based on guest needs.KaiYue Hotel policy “Room service options vary by hotel, but guests can share their room service preferences upon arrival and the hotel will do its best to accommodate their requests.” MarriottProvides full cleaning services for top hotels and every other day cleaning services for other locations, and instructs guests on how to opt in or out of cleaning services. Hilton Tell guests that “most hotels have implemented flexible room service policies that provide daily service upon request.”
A Hilton spokesperson told wealth Daily housekeeping will be expanded to more hotels in the fall, when “guests will enjoy automated daily housekeeping at all Hilton luxury, full-service, lifestyle and Hilton Embassy Suites properties worldwide,” Marriott said. , “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.” Hyatt did not respond to a request for comment on cleaning frequency.
Requests fell on deaf ears
For travelers who like to make their beds and change their towels every day, figuring out how to communicate their requests can be a maddening job to decipher.
Abhishek Singh, who travels frequently as a technology analyst, recalled the first time he learned that housekeeping was now optional in the spring of 2022, when he was attending a conference in Seattle. After 12 hours of walking, he returned to his room at 9:30 p.m. to find the bed unmade and “towels scattered on the floor.” He called the front desk and learned that the Marriott didn’t offer daily housekeeping, and when he tried to request housekeeping the next morning, he was flatly refused. At other hotels, he asked for housekeeping service at 10am every day, but was told that he should request it by 9am in order to be accommodated. (A Marriott spokesman declined to comment wealth about this specific incident. )
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 agreed to clean it that day, which was against normal policy. (He said they agreed.)
But Singer remains frustrated by the deception at hotels that charged him $200 to $500 a night. “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.
He also chastises hotels that describe reduced cleaning as eco-friendly, calling it “virtue signaling.”
Hotel employees also objected to the advertised environmental benefits. When two or three guests stay in a room and it’s only cleaned at check-out, it means more time, more cleaning, said Lucy Biswas, a housekeeper at the Washington Hilton. products and tougher jobs. According to Biswas’s union, Unite Here Local 25, at the height of the pandemic, hotels sometimes had only six housekeepers to clean a full building, instead of the 40 housekeepers they usually had a day before the pandemic.
“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.
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,” said Singer, a technology analyst. “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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