Hilton’s CEO was first out of the gate publicly declaring that guests should no longer receive daily housekeeping at full service hotels in the U.S. as a cost-cutting measure he believed people would accept after the pandemic. The goal is to charge people more, deliver them less, and improve margins.
A guest at the Hilton Brentwood/Nashville Suites shares what that looks like in practice.
This dirty laundry in the hall is just nasty. It took Hilton 24 hours to collect these nasty dirty towels and sheets that someone just tossed out of their room .
Published with permission
Marriott’s CEO is on board with eliminating housekeeping services, too. And I’ve already shown you what that looks like at the TownePlace Suites Outer Banks Kill Devil Hills.
Reducing housekeeping staffing isn’t just about turning a premium hotel experience into a dorm. It also means lacking the staffing to clean rooms and make them available for guests, when demand does materialize. It’s how one Marriott guest wound up sleeping in a room that hadn’t been cleaned since the previous guest despite Marriott’s “Clean Commitment.” You can’t talk about a commitment to clean without housekeeping services. Remind me what differentiates a full service hotel from Airbnb again?
@robbo I spent a few weeks at a Hilton in Los Angeles and was regularly told that housecleaning was unavailable, even on request. Is LA sufficiently non-“hick town” for you? No one is arguing that ALL Hilton and Marriotts are a problem, as others here have pointed out. But calling this #fake news based on one person’s experience ignores that there is a change in policy and there are problems.
Hopefully this new service change remains limited to US. There are plenty of proper full service options to choose there aside from Hilton. Hope people let their money do the talking by taking to the competition. Let Hilton know they lost your business after the fact. Problem in US is the top level decision makers know they can make change there and get little resistance. In Asia, Pacific and Middle East regions, Hilton has 5 star, full serve as market demands no less and if they lower standard, there are plenty of other compteting chains to go to (Shangri-La, Accor, Langham, etc)
I have no problem paying modestly higher hotel rates so housekeeping staff can earn $15/hr cleaning 30 rooms a day. But I expect housekeeping.
If what I get is a bed and a bathroom but no service, that’s a hostel.
I’m upper level Hilton and Marriott. I don’t want or need full housekeeping and definitely no turndown service whatsoever, but what’s been going on in both of these chains has been insufficient and unhealthful during COVID. Trash, soiled linens, garbage, etc. in the halls should never happen. Without minimum housekeeping to justify the cost of these hotels is unjustified. Minimum, housekeeping to me is daily trash removal, daily new towels unless the hotel provides adequate places to hang towels to dry within 12 hours, daily bathroom cleaning, once per 5 days bed linen changes, full dusting/sanitation, carpet vacuuming, etc. It the hotels aren’t prepared to provide that service, I’ll start using boutique hotels, etc. that do provide reasonable housekeeping services.
WTH is wrong with these hotel managers? Screw around with your ‘daily housekeeping’ policy all you want, but have the halls patrolled 24/7. This is not rocket science, boys and girls. I happen to be one of those travellers who doesn’t let housekeeping into my room, but I’d pitch a huge fit if any discards were left in the hallways more than an hour.