Adios room-service. Hotels join airlines in cutting services, adding charges
Posted by staff / June 3, 2013 Room service
UGH. It really can get annoying, eh? All these extra charges on your trip’s bill. We take one step forward and three steps back. Here in Canada for example, it took years of arguing for the real cost of a flight to be shown in advertisements (we used to see, fly from Toronto to Vancouver for $139!! And the small print would show: plus $5043 dollars in charges and taxes). Now, the more-or-less true cost of the flight must be shown fully.
Now it’s hotels.
Robert Caplin at The New York Times writes that the room service many have come to expect from a hotel stay is going the way of the dodo.
In August, the New York Hilton Midtown, in the heart of Manhattan, will discontinue food and drink service to all 2,000 of its rooms. In its place will be a new self-service Herb n’ Kitchen stocked with grab-and-go items. A spokesman for the hotel, which is part of the chain that also operates the Waldorf, cited declining demand for room service as the reason; some hotel industry experts see the elimination of the labor-intensive amenity as a way for the chain to save money.
Hotels will evaluate their properties on a hotel-by-hotel basis and not all will lose this perk.
The guests at the Waldorf, for instance, will not be losing room service, and a Hilton spokesman said the company was evaluating its other hotels on a case-by-case basis.
Over at the Pierre, guests could buy their own groceries and have the room service personnel collect them to have them cooked. Who knows if this wonderful service will be eliminated?
People are not happy! Some have commented that when they fly in jet-lagged and/or late at night, room service is a cherished option. Read more at: New York Times.
Photo credit: Sergey Nivens – Fotolia.com
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