Doug Demore is not a “revenge” traveler. The broadcast engineer has never stopped working during the pandemic, installing and maintaining television transmitters across the Western United States. However, he said service has become so bad since the outbreak that he has had to change hotels during his travels. On his last trip, Demore booked a seven-day flight but left the next day.
What is his main complaint? Housekeeping – or lack thereof. “There weren’t that many towels, the cleaning service basically stopped during the visit, the floors weren’t really cleaned very well and some of the beds looked like someone had taken a nap on them before I got there,” DeMoore, 53, told reporters. of.” wealth.
So far, industry analysts say, operators that have downsized their workforces during the pandemic-era labor shortage are in no rush to replenish their staff. In fact, according to data compiled by Unite Here, the number of restaurant employees has experienced its largest decline in three decades during the pandemic and has yet to recover.
Hotels that cut back on room cleaning “have found that, most of the time, most customers don’t miss it, and in addition, hotel owners don’t have to pay for housekeeping at all due to a lack of labor and rising labor prices,” Truist Securities Leisure and Lodging Equity Research said Managing Director C. Patrick Scholes.
“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.
Same price, less effort
Accommodations with optional maid service didn’t start with the pandemic—over the past decade, hotels have begun offering guests the option of maid service Skip towel cleaning or cleaning For perks, it’s usually points or snacks.
But the pandemic has exacerbated this trend. With properties mostly vacant and only a handful of guests willing to forgive the disruption caused by the pandemic, many chains see an opportunity to permanently downsize in exchange for higher profits.
Hilton CEO Chris Nasetta said: “The work we are doing now in each brand … is to make them higher-margin businesses and improve labor efficiency, especially in housekeeping, restaurants and other areas.” Investors predict in 2021 that “when we emerge from the crisis, these businesses will have higher profit margins than before the new crown epidemic and require less labor.” According to its latest news annual reportHilton’s systemwide headcount decreased by 8% compared with 2019, even as its room count increased by 14%.
A company spokesman did not respond wealth Its cost-cutting strategy has been questioned, but it said in a statement, “As the tourism industry rebounds after the epidemic, more and more of our hotels have also reintroduced automated daily cleaning services. Starting this fall, guests will be able to stay at all Hilton properties around the world.” Luxury, full-service, lifestyle and Embassy Suites hotels enjoy automated daily housekeeping.” The person added, “Guests at any Hilton brand can share their preferences upon arrival or during their stay and have them customized to their individual needs. Customized room service schedule.”
Scholes said that before the outbreak, hotels needed to maintain an occupancy rate of about 40% to achieve cost balance, but with the reduction in cleaning work, that number has been closer to 30%. 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,” he said.
So far, hotel occupancy rates nationwide have rebounded to 2019 levels, according to data Data provider STR, but employment has not kept up. It’s not entirely the hotels’ fault: Sean O’Neill, restaurants editor at travel website Skift, noted that many employees have left the industry during the pandemic. With the staff loss, restaurants “now have to hire people who don’t have that experience and train them” — one reason some operators are dragging their feet on cleaning, he said.
Indeed, hotels are facing much higher costs than they were just a few years ago, with rates now approaching 8%, more than double levels during the pandemic. Against this background, hoteliers building new hotels are eager to save costs as much as possible, and labor costs are one of them.
Today, “it costs more to build a hotel or own a hotel. You want to offset the costs and this would be one of them,” Scholes said.
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, according to back-of-the-envelope calculations by Bernstein analyst Richard Clark. labor costs. (In many high-cost areas, 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 ” The point is that while “room service options vary by hotel, guests can share their room service preferences upon arrival and the hotel will try 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.
Hyatt did not respond to a request for comment on cleaning frequency, while 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.”
Luxury service drops
It’s not just cleaning with reduced staff, Scholes said: Hotels are also eliminating many perks that feel luxurious but aren’t as profitable, such as room service or hotel-operated restaurants.
At the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn, massage therapist Alex Treadwell said there are fewer staff but not fewer customers at her job. It’s even more difficult. Treadwell told reporters the hotel has reduced nightly cleaning and eliminated concierge positions. wealth.
Customers who come for a sauna or massage must ask questions to the masseuse or room attendant between cleaning tasks, she said.
“It’s like you’re throwing a party but you’re not the host,” she said. At one point, Treadwell said, a customer approached Treadwell and asked for a drying robe because the masseuse had slipped in a puddle and sat on the floor.
Now, the spa has a “brown-gray” path along the hallway over the once uniform beige Spanish tiles, Treadwell said. Her long-term clients “will use words like ‘tired.’ They’ll say ‘it’s going downhill,'” she said. “They come in with certain expectations… When you come in, you want the place to look pristine, you want to hear angels singing. But that didn’t happen.”
To make matters worse, Treadwell said the spa has raised massage prices in recent years without any improvement in service – a massage previously cost $169, now it’s $199. (Treadwell makes $18 an hour, plus a portion of the massage fees.) The hotel staff includes Forced to form a trade union,believe collective bargaining is the only way to get the people and pay they want.
“We unionized to provide a better, safer workplace for ourselves and to provide a better experience for our guests. It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen unless we unionize,” Treadwell said.
“COVID-19 has pushed us into an undeniable position where something has to change,” she added. “Maybe they think they lost money because of COVID-19 and now they have to raise prices to make up for it…but you would think they would do better and provide better service than cancel the concierge and not clean the floors. . ”
A spokesman for the hotel did not respond to a request for comment.
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