Those are another name for resort fee. Those are fees charged daily, typically for Las Vegas casino hotels and full board resorts in US vacations places, covering water, fitness center, internet and other costs. Those are not included in the rate and not optional. Those have existed for a while in those places.

Since a few years, in their constant efforts to extort money as much as possible while providing a poor level of service, chains with properties in some locations (NYC, Chicago and apparently Washington) introduce the same concept, with a different name. It was reported Sofitel Chicago jumped on that bandwagon earlier this year, seems Washington too.

I would really like to know if Accor HQ is OK with this and endorse it or if those are hotels going rogue.