6 Hotel Trends From Disappearing Tubs to New Fees - ABC News
Pump bottle on the shower wall or individual shampoos and lotions you can take home? Luxurious tub for a self-indulgent bath or no tub at all? A friendly greeting from a well-informed local or a code transmitted electronically that will open your hotel room door with no human interaction at check-in whatsoever?
Here are some details on six hotel trends bubbling up in the industry right now, and how they affect your stay.
INCREASING FEES: Your hotel bill may include some unpleasant surprises. Not just the usual $20-a-day resort and amenity fee, which you pay whether or not you use the tennis courts and pool complex, but how about a required $12 housekeeping surcharge or a fee for storing your luggage in the lobby?
Total fees and surcharges collected by U.S. hotels are increasing from $1.7 billion in 2010 to a record $1.8 billion in 2011, according to new research from Bjorn Hanson, dean of New York University's Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality and Sports Management. Hanson recommends that consumers ask when getting a rate for a hotel what if any requisite fees will be added to the bill. If you're booking online, you may have to hunt around the listing to see what might be added to the quoted rate in addition to taxes.
LOBBIES AS SOCIAL HUBS: Colorful seating, free Internet service and trendy cocktail and coffee bars are helping to turn once-sterile hotel lobbies into social hubs. Hanson says while baby boomers might see the lobby as a place to meet at 6 p.m. sharp before heading to a prearranged restaurant location, younger travelers may prefer to gather more informally in the lobby, hang out for a while, socialize and take their time choosing where they'll spend the evening. They might check email, go online using a cell phone or iPad to look for dining recommendations, or try whatever snacks or drinks are readily available from the lobby market or bar.
Hilton's new Home2 Suites extended stay brand designed their lobbies with an eye toward bringing business travelers out of their rooms. Tables and colorful couches offer space for informal meetings as well as areas where anyone can plop down with a laptop and a drink rather than sitting alone in a room watching TV.
DISAPPEARING TUBS: Unless you're booking a suite, your next stay in a hotel room may not offer the luxury of a bath. Many newly built hotels are offering showers only. Marriott, for example, is "advising our newly built hotels to put showers in 75 percent of the rooms and bathtubs in 25 percent of the rooms," according to Marriott spokeswoman Laurie Goldstein. "Our research shows that business travelers prefer showers to baths but families like the flexibility of a bathtub as well as a shower."
So if you're traveling with a small child who's going to need a bath before bedtime, call ahead to make sure your room has a tub.
PUMP DISPENSERS: The advent of pump dispensers in hotel bathrooms is good and bad news for those guests obsessed with the tiny bottles of shampoo and individually wrapped soaps that have been a beloved amenity for decades.
The good news: If you need more shampoo than what may be as little as a half-ounce in those small plastic containers, you can pump as much as you want from the dispenser. No more fighting with your roommate over that tiny bottle or running to the front desk before your 6 a.m. shower to get another one.
24 Sep, 2011--
Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNGQFhk2y5FVF21_BapEk9YEhN1xGg&url=http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/wireStory/hotel-trends-disappearing-tubs-fees-14594287
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