Originally Posted by
bdschobel
I suppose this is non-debatable. But I'd still like to understand their reasoning. I don't have a clue right now. It's hard to believe that the revenue from paid breakfasts (which must be pretty rare) exceeds the loss from a signficant number of elite travelers avoiding Courtyards, but what do I know?
Bruce
Here's my totally unsubtantiated out of thin air guess: Encouraging elites away from CYs and towards SHS, FS, et al, likely maximizes the number of guests across all brands...
Plat Marriott guests are going to react one of two ways: stay at the CY anyway or move to a nearby FS, Ren, SHS or FI. A very small number would wind up at a non-MI property.
At the high-economy/low-deluxe level, non-elites are less likely to consider SHS or a FS property. Those of us who stay in hotels often likely know the SHS brand, while the occaisional traveler probably isn't as familiar with that brand as with CY.
Not including breakfast likely translates to some elites choosing another MI brand hotel. If breakfast were included, more elites would stay at CY, fewer rooms would be available and the non-elites who couldn't get into a CY wouldn't choose SHS or a FS, but would, instead, migrate Hilton Garden, Hampton Inn or Holiday Inn Express.
As others have stated, MI could easily, inexpensively add breakfast. They've likely modeled revenues with and without the free breakfast and have figured they come out ahead not offering breakfast. They have the actual data with which to analyze this. They are a successful company. You gotta figure they know more than us when it comes to the cost effectiveness of hotel perks.