Travel is starting to boom again, but that has not stopped hotels from using the pandemic to justify numerous cutbacks. Sometimes, though, the hypocrisy is just glaring.
Pandemic-Era Hotel Cutbacks Remain, Over Two Years Later
Take for example the Park Hyatt Melbourne. It’s a lovely hotel that I stayed at a few years ago and look forward to visiting again. My friend is there this week and let me know that the bar is closed, main restaurant closed, and other services are reduced. The only thing available is room service or a limited number of tables in the lobby tea area or lounge.
All for the “protection” of customers. And the hotel still costs $500/night.
But this evening the hotel is hosting an event – and look at lobby:
Love the social distancing and masks, don’t you? Truthfully, I’m happy to see hotel lobbies packed again. But I’m not happy to see the contradiction of hosting events like this but then saying that the pandemic requires you to close restaurants and limit menus.
Pick one please. Don’t insult our intelligence.
There are so many other examples. I was recently at the Four Seasons in Dallas and they’ve swapped out real coffee cups for paper ones. Seriously (in Texas of all places)?
If I wanted paper cups, I would have chosen a Best Western. I guess I should be thankful they didn’t take away the espresso machine for my health and well-being.
This sort of hypocrisy will continue. Hotels will happily take our money (with often-exorbinant rates these days), but not offer nearly the depth or breadth of amenities that were offered prior to the pandemic.
And of course they will get away with this as long as they can — you can’t necessarily blame a hotel for seeking to pad margins after two difficult years. Even so, consumers will grow tried of all this and eventually vote with their wallets. Hopefully that will come sooner rather than later. I’ve avoided some of my favorite places, like the Hyatt Carmel Highlands, because of its absurd cutbacks in the name of COVID-19.
CONCLUSION
Importantly, not all hotels are engaging in this sort of hygiene theatre. That’s a good thing, because eventually it will force other hotels to match. Things are better these days, but we still have a long way to go.
You are fully right, it’s a shame!
There are so many other examples to add on:
In a Marriott for >USD 250/night in Europe, there was no cup in the bathroom, you have to take a paper cup from the bar, sorry, because of Covid.
There are no more amenities available – all because of Covid.
Breakfast selection is limited, but price still the same – all because of Covid.
In a Moxy, I recently had no second roll of TP, despite there was a holder for it – reception excused this is Covid – this is really bad.
… and so on…..
Very hard to find hotel with a lounge that is open or not limiting access/capacity in the name of safety. Yet the same hotels have bars, gyms, restaurants all open to full capacity.
Free market Capitalism in america is a joke. The last two presidents allowed competition in many industries to be cut down. This president seems to be doing something about it. But the pigs have gotten so used to feeding at the trough that they call this president anti-capitalist.
There is not enough competition in the hotel industry amongst many others if they all can get away with behaving similarly.
There’s plenty of competition. It’s called AirBnB.
I was relieved to discover that the various hotels I have been visiting over two longish trips to Africa and South America (including a couple of stays within Europe as part of stopovers/positioning flights) had the full complement of amenities/facilities available- only exception being one of them keeping the sauna closed. I am about to pay $35 per night for an executive room upgrade in an hotel that has a lounge available from 06:00 to 22:00.
Looks like US chains are once again short-changing their customers. They will not stop doing that unless and until enough customers realise that there is little value to being loyal to a brand which serves up products that are underwhelming and/or overpriced.
Again, the people that read this blog are the MINORITY. The average person traveling doesn’t give a flying F if a coffee cup is paper or not.
That said, you are missing the employee crisis that is still going on. Hotels can’t find people to do the jobs such as cleaning dishes, even offering up to $20 an hour.
People are happy to be living their life and don’t care about the reduced services, it’s the new norm so get used to it.
The “average person” isn’t staying at a Four Seasons.
A lot of this is caused by the government deciding to pay people (long term) not to work. So, they don’t. And now the service industry (in particular) badly lacks employees. Now, hotels blaming these kinds of cutbacks on COVID is disingenuous at best and is more likely blatant bullplop. And, they still do use the ‘vid as an excuse to cut back on services and save costs. But that’s no nearly all of it – many of your complaints are caused by the lack of workers, which is a point worth mentioning.
I work for a hotel and we’ve stopped telling people it’s COVID, it’s because of supply chain issues and staffing. Restaurant and kitchen staff are close to impossible to find and for an area that’s already a money loser for most hotels, it’s not worth fighting the battle. We’re also running into 3-6 month delays on pillows, blankets, glasses, irons, hair dryers, bath soap, etc so we make do with what we have while charging market rate because demand and costs are higher than they were in 2019.
In the case of the Park Hyatt Melbourne cited here, it appears though they had no problem staffing an event for 500 people. Given my knowledge of catering and banquet costs this was, I am sure, well exceeding a $100K budget and required dozens of waiters, bartenders, and chefs. So I guess it’s all relative, you can’t find the staff when it’s an amenity that many solo business travelers expect, but suddenly you can if it’s a huge contract to heavily profit from.
Losers and lazy people will always use Covid as an excuse. Some people were mentally damaged forever. I just saw my neighbor after almost 2 years of not seeing her. She arrived in her car alone. Parked it in her garage and left to walk to the mailbox. She was wearing a N95 mask and surgical gloves. So she drove back hime from somewhere wearing mask and gloves alone in her car and kept them while walking outside to check the mail. What can I say?
Melbourne is such a great city for food of all sorts I would never choose a hotel there because of its restaurants. It’s one of those cities for me where a clean and comfortable bed is all I ask because I don’t need the rest of what a 5* might – or in this case might not offer.
Trade down a bit!
While you are spot on about Melbourne, Matt’s central point does hold true.
I’ve a clean and comfortable room booked via a well known chain, in Melbourne and it seems they have decided to only service rooms once every three days!
Agreed that it’s a great food city, however if dealing with a three hour lunch with clients earlier in the day and more of the same the next, a nice simple dinner alone in a hotel restaurant without a lot of fan fare and searching around is often the need. That is why as business travel returns this is not going to cut it at full service properties.
Paper coffee cups “in Texas of all places” –
Yeah, that’s really surprising, because in other respects Texas is always such a class act, isn’t it?
Few things
1. Staff shortages would definitely play a roll in this
2. Hotels aren’t owned by individuals passionate about running hotels, they are owned by the nebulous “investors”. Therefore you see such penny pinching.
3. There is a huge lack of competition in most sectors of the economy in the usa because of consolidation. Eg, Marriott is literally too big to fail at this point. One of their brands will be available in most parts of the world. If you don’t have many choices, your supplier can take advantage of you.
Marriott is a very big chain indeed, but I can’t imagine there are any markets outside of the USA where they’re the only game in town. Similarly, Accor are huge in France but in most other markets they’re just 1, 2 or 3 options out of many. The issue is with misplaced loyalty, some people get really excited buying the cheapest room in a hotel belonging to a specific chain and then getting a ‘free upgrade’, even if a competitor hotel wants a lower rate for a similar standard of service together with a room similar to which they have been upgraded.