Outlets, MiniBars, Common Sense: New Year’s Resolutions For Hotels

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Hotels may appear to be paragons of service and convenience compared with airlines. Which is why we’ve already asked that industry to commit to our own list of resolutions for 2011. Now we turn to the lodging industry, where there is plenty of room for improvement. The focus? �� ?not surprisingly ��? is on common sense and nickel and diming.

Intelligent design

Let’s start first on hotel room design. You may be traveling with iPhones, iPads, laptops, Blackberrys and a host of other electronic gadgets, and yet the hotel plays hide-and-seek with outlets. There are never enough outlets to plug in and/or charge. When do finally find the outlets, we have to be contortionists to get everything plugged in.

: We will design rooms intelligently to accommodate 21st century needs. We will assume that, whether the guest is traveling for business or pleasure, electronics are coming along for the ride.

Then there’s the in-room thermostat. I remember back to the old days of the small Honeywell wheel. You turned it to the temperature you desired and there was an on/off switch. Simple. A cave man could do it. Heck, even I could do it. Today, you need an IT specialist to decipher the thermostats in most hotel rooms. Same goes for the TV remote unit: how about on/off, volume/channel? I don’t need to launch the space shuttle from my hotel room.

We will resist unnecessary complications. We’ll keep it simple.

How about a law requiring hotel designers to spend three in the rooms they create before they can be paid for their work? They might realize that we don’t always want mood lighting and that we don’t change our lifestyle when we change locations? I like to read and even work in bed.?Who ever said that style should take precedence over practicality and substance?

: We will give guests more than a single 40-watt bulb with an on/off switch. We’ll provide a 300-watt bulb (or two) with dimmers, and allow guests to set the mood as they wish.

Truth in pricing.

The first mission of of hotels should be hospitality, and? charging for wireless access is downright inhospitable. If wireless is free at the Hampton Inn, why should the Ritz-Carlton charge $13 a day for the service. It should be free across the board at every hotel.

On that note, any hotel that charges a “resort” fee should be boycotted. These are hotels that want to look competitive on their official rate, ?but are far from competitive on value. If I’m spending $400 a night for my room, don’t charge me $20 a day more for access to beach towel.

: We will not nickel and dime our guests.

Hotels deliver the ultimate insult to our intelligence when it comes to the minibar. (I’d like to join the Green Berets in an assault on all infrared minibars — you know, the machines that more or less say “step away from the Diet Coke” because if you even look at that can, you’ll be charged for it.

: We will not assume our guests are dumb, that they don’t shop, that they don’t visit the supermarket. We will acknowledge that they can buy a case of bottled water for the price we are charging for one small bottle.

Here’s a model to follow. London’s Athenaeum Hotel in London realized very quickly that a major irritant for guests were those Darth Vader minibars. So they removed all of them, replaced them with small refrigerators, and stocked them full of regular and diet sodas, cookies, candies, milk, juice and nuts �� all complimentary. The hotel quietly raised room rates about $20 a night, but no one had to go to their wallet at 3 a.m. for a Snickers bar. Guess what happened? Hotel occupancy rose about 17 percent. We were willing to pay more NOT to be nickel and dimed and it was a win-win for everyone.

: We will listen to our guests and follow their suggestions. Otherwise, we will expect customers to charge their own “resort” fee: they’ll resort to staying somewhere else.