Leaving gratuities for members of the housekeeping staff at hotel and resort properties has been a contentious topic which has been debated by frequent travelers for many years — from recommending that ten dollars per person per day should be the standard to a lodging company placing envelopes in hotel rooms to strongly encourage and persuade guests to leave a gratuity for members of the housekeeping staff…
Gratuity For Reduced Housekeeping Services at Hotel Properties?
…but all of this controversy was when rooms were fully serviced every day by members of the housekeeping staff, as it was expected: just leave the room for a few hours during the day and finding the bathroom replenished with fresh towels, surfaces cleaned, and the comforter and duvet on the bed in place as though no one had used them.
“Hilton continues to offer daily housekeeping by request to all of our guests, free of charge, across all of our 18 brands around the world”, my contact at Hilton relayed to me back in July of 2021. “Throughout the pandemic, we discovered guests enjoyed the flexibility of on-demand housekeeping services and have varying levels of comfort with someone entering their rooms after they have checked in. We encourage our guests to call the front desk to request room cleaning, and our Team Members stand ready to assist with extra towels or amenities.”
The translation is that housekeeping services will no longer be performed on a daily basis for the same guest in the same room unless it is specifically requested.
Honestly, I do not have a problem with the room in which I am staying not being automatically serviced every day by members of the housekeeping staff — but this does raise at least a couple of points: does this policy jeopardize the livelihoods of employees in the housekeeping department in terms of gratuities, salaries, or even the job itself…
…and if Hilton is saving money by not automatically providing daily housekeeping of every room in every hotel and resort property, should at least some of those savings be passed on to the guest? As a corollary, could an extra fee in addition to the room rate possibly be charged in the future when requesting housekeeping with increased frequency?
Final Boarding Call
When you arrive at a hotel or resort property for a stay, your room should have been thoroughly cleaned and prepared for you to use — and the room should once again be serviced for the next guest who uses it. If you stay for only one night, nothing changes for you — but if you stay in the same room for a week and receive no housekeeping services during that week, how much of a gratuity should you leave to members of the housekeeping staff? Should the amount be the same as always; less because you are receiving fewer services; or should you leave no gratuity at all?
What if the service you receive is considered to be substandard? What if the hotel glasses in your room were not being properly cleaned to the point that you would likely not want to drink out of them? What if you found out that your room was infested with bed bugs? Would you still leave a gratuity?
What if you received virtually no service at all at the hotel or resort property at which you stayed — especially during the current 2019 Novel Coronavirus pandemic, when many amenities and services were either substantially reduced or temporarily eliminated altogether?
All photographs ©2017 and ©2018 by Brian Cohen.
