Hotel Shampoo, Tubs and Taxes

[Kaleel Sakakeeny]

Hotel  Shampoo, Tubs and Taxes

It’s not one of travel’s burning issues: shower wall shampoo and conditioner or those small bottles that travelers can take home if they don’t use them?

Or even if they do.

So it was interesting to read that Hotelmarketing.com was just as curious, and asked the question.

But the AP’s Beth Harpaz, in a piece picked up by MSNBC, thought increasing fees charged by hotels was immediately more important than the issue of shampoos.

Today, she says, hotels are not much different from the airlines or car rental companies when it comes to vexing guests with unwanted and often irrelevant fees.

Don’t use the pool or tennis court? Doesn’t make you immune from the “resort and amenity” fee that can run as high as 20 bucks.

OK, but how about having to pay for the daily cleaning of your room?

Don’t be surprised if you soon see or are seeing a “housekeeping” fee, or a charge for storing luggage in the lobby.

Hotel are getting richer, less by the price they charge for their rooms and more by the fees they charge.

Just like the airlines.

In 2011, the total fees and surcharges, as reported by Hotelmarketing, jumped from 1.7 billion in 2010 to 1.8 billion in 2011.

It’s now just as important to ask the hotel what the total fees and surcharges  are, as it is to ask car rental companies the same question.

MSNBC points out other hotel trends in the making:

• Boring, sterile hotel lobbies are increasingly being designed as social hubs. With WiFi services, coffee bars, conversational areas, travelers are spending more time in the lobby as part of the social aspect of their stay.

• And  the tub is disappearing. More and more hotels, are offering just showers. Marriott Hotels is suggesting that 75% of its new hotels have only showers, with tubs for the other 25%.

A Marriott spokesperson concluded that business travelers prefer showers to baths, but quite the opposite for families.

About those shampoo dispensers?

Well, that’s a toss up.

Like to use a lot of shampoo or shampoo a lot? Then you’ll appreciate the increasing use of pump shampoos. Way more product here than in those tiny bottles, and less plastic to throw away.

But those tiny bottles and wrapped soaps are so personal, branded, and easy to carry away.

We wonder if the quality of the shampoo and soap in those pump containers can possibly be as good as the individually wrapped, often branded ones.

That's another story..