Hotel Industry getting a wake up call

www.businessinsider.com...

This is a super interesting article pointing out how the hotel industry is not keeping up and the "low pay" and benefits are keeping people from
staying or working there. I believe similar to fast food people don't want to work with annoying customers, but that's just me.
I noticed recently what freaking slobs people are! I think it was always hidden because these places had enough staff.

When reading this article something caught my eye.

"I'm of the view that housekeeping will be transformed in this industry," Keith Barr, CEO of IHG Hotels & Resorts, said at Monday's conference, per Skift. "When you're at home, do you change your sheets every day? Do you wash towels every day?"

Actually I do wash my towels every day!!! I may not wash my sheets every day but they get laundered regularly. Also for some people the point of going to a hotel is to get those things!

Barr added that customer-satisfaction scores were falling across the industry.

I think they are just trying to set expections low and set the bar low for future visitors. I'm sorry but a dirty hotel is not on my list. I travel a lot and one tip I have is don't just equate price with being clean, some of the worst offenders are higher end place, some of the cleaner places can be more modertly priced. I always read reviews, read lots of them on different sites.

a reply to: JAGStorm
FWIW I avoid hotels as much as possible.

Just going through the motions is working, but it is not doing the job.

I believe that a big part of the problem is the hours and work load of the cleaning crew. Smaller staff gets worked harder and has to compromise the standards of the job to meet the increased demands without any over time allowed.

A worker cleans like fifty rooms a day while helping with other tasks that should be the responsibility of a missing staff member due to worker shortages, all this on a low paid shortened work week. IMO you'll get an over all crappy job of it under those conditions.

So are the staff at these hotels members of the SEIU? If that is the case then their wages are set by their contract. When the whole $15 per hour thing was going a few years ago the SEIU wanted their members exempt from it.

If the staff isn't, then they are free to find other better paying work. That's how it is SUPPOSED to work. The hotel either raises it's pay enough to keep it's current workforce and or attract new employees or the hotel goes under.

This is an example of how it's supposed to work.
www.wtae.com...

Thanks to bedbug paranoia, I cannot enjoy any hotel stay.

a reply to: JAGStorm

I recently spent two weeks in high end hotels (in Ireland) where they have a system that they will clean you room each day, make the bed, take away dirty dishes…etc. Towels left on the floor will taken away, But they ask that lightly used be hung back up to spare the utilities costs. They change the bed linen after a few days, unless its badly soiled. Seems to be reasonable.

a reply to: JIMC5499

If the staff isn't, then they are free to find other better paying work. That's how it is SUPPOSED to work. The hotel either raises it's pay enough to keep it's current workforce and or attract new employees or the hotel goes under.

I live in a state with an older population. We have a couple of touristy areas like the Wisconsin Dells, and Door County.
Both of those areas relied heavily on foreigners. I'm not just talking from South of the border either. In the dells there were a lot of people from the Ukraine, Romania, Philippines, etc. They would house them in dorms and pay low wages and somehow it worked out for a long time. The crowds are returning like pre covid but there just isn't enough staff.

the torrid tales of Hotel visits were well known before "labor" problems.

sheets, towels, glasses, and those little bars of soap and shampoo.

Today, with the corona, it can be nothing but worse.

a reply to: JAGStorm
Why do you wash towels every day?

Are you akin to Vincent Vaga?

You are supposed to wash the dirt off before using the towel.

originally posted by: ketsuko
Thanks to bedbug paranoia, I cannot enjoy any hotel stay.

I've traveled a lot, and had 1 bedbug experience.
Clearwater Florida.

The hotel did not even deny it, they blamed it on people from New Jersey. I'm not even kidding.

Here is exactly how it went down. Expensive hotel, breathtaking views. We enjoyed the sun and sand all day. Ate a good meal, and woke up to my daughter screaming bloody murder. There was a bedbug on her!
Due to the fact that I have bug phobia to begin with, our vacation ended with us disposing of pretty much all of our belongings. When I say all, I mean all. When we came home. We took turns in the garage individually stripping naked before entering the house. Little did we know, my son was home at the time. He demanded to know why we were all entering naked. It's still one of the funniest stories. Now I'm like inspector gadget looking at the rooms before I put anything down.

I'm surprised the airbnb platform has not destroyed the hotel industry completely.
Two years ago, just before covid, my nephew and I visited relatives in Seattle. A couple other relatives came to visit at the same time. These are people who are 'too good' for airbnb, so they probably paid $200 per day for a 'nice' hotel.
When we all met one evening, they told us the hotel restaurant was one of the worst they'd ever encountered.

My nephew and I got an airbnb in Issaquah that was fantastic. A cabin on a creek, complete with waterfalls! It was unbelievable. Counting fees, we paid $70 each per day.

It's funny how some airbnb hosts offer such fantastic deals, while others think there crappy semi-private spaces are somehow worth $100 per day. For the most part, they've been pretty good. I traveled a lot back in 2018-2019, and only stayed in a hotel once. airbnb is a trip. I stayed 3 days at an airbnb in Omaha, NE that was fantastic, for $35 per day!

a reply to: JAGStorm

"When you're at home, do you change your sheets every day? Do you wash towels every day?"

He must be forgetting that for most people at home, they don't have a different filthy stranger sleeping(or doing various other things) in their bed every night. It's just not comparable.

a reply to: ColeYounger

I do a lot of abnb too and some of them are slacking in the cleaning department too, for the same reason! They can't find low wage people to do it, if they are not able to.

My friend sold all of her rentals because she couldn't and the cleaners wanted more than the rental costs.

a reply to: JAGStorm

I'm back to travelling regularly and what Hilton is doing at least is letting you know that daily housekeeping is by request. The linens are all changed prior to and after your arrival so if you want extra you ask for it.

Service meals are still a bit spotty but I typically don't eat more than breakfast at a hotel unless it's a higher end property.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Of course, the price won't come down.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

Why do you wash towels every day?

I do it because a clean towel is worth it to me, and washing a load of laundry is not a big deal to me.
I am a clean freak and not going to change.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

I'm back to travelling regularly and what Hilton

I've been really disspointed with Hiltons in the last couple of years, been leaning toward the newer Marriott brands more and more. So far so good.
Only had one issue that wasn't a big deal and they seemed genuinely concerned.

a reply to: JAGStorm

I'm too embedded in my HHonors points now, I have way too many plus they extended my Diamond status another year which means my friend who also travels with us gets that as well since I can gift it to one person.

Sha la la la
roll you over
turn you round and do it again
Sha la la la
keep on comin'....do it once
and never the same....

I might have played this in my head
over the snickering coming from maids gathered
in the room next door
at a spyhole comfort inn near the outskirts of Toronto.

Dirty? Yes. Everything about it was.
The walls were atrocious, splattered with what
looked like dried eggwhites.
When I opened the door, I asked a nearby maid
for a different room, to which
the laughter arose to become
a protracted, almost deafening squeal.
But I was clean.

I was reminded of an ad campaign for Red Roof Inn
I had been working on. All I could come up with for
this place was Royal Inn Filth.

get it?
Roil.
Bwa haa haa!

I was in town to buy radio equipment when
it wasn't yet against the law
to monitor police paramedic fire activity.
Now...paper weights costing thousands.
Every channel is a digital staccato bray of encoded machine gun fire
we aren't supposed to know about.
Craig Johnson, Mayor of Elk Grove Village
explained that 'too may persons were monitoring police channels'
so they went straight to encrypted digital...

a reply to: JAGStorm

# 1481

originally posted by: JAGStorm
a reply to: ColeYounger

I do a lot of abnb too and some of them are slacking in the cleaning department too, for the same reason! They can't find low wage people to do it, if they are not able to.

My friend sold all of her rentals because she couldn't and the cleaners wanted more than the rental costs.

Hopefully this ain't a T&C violation! I got on airbnb and found the place I'm talking about. As you can see, 5-star ratings.
The other relatives get a hotel that's right off the freeway near downtown Seattle, my nephew and I are sipping a beer while sitting in the backyard forest, next to a waterfall.

Isaaquah, WA airbnb