Nobody likes these resort fees, except the hotels that will tell you they are compelled to do them for competitive reasons.
I am very much a pro-business person generally speaking. I typically feel that things like this should be left up to the business and the government needs to leave it alone. This is a case where certain businesses have engaged in a practice of lower room rates advertised with a resort display disclosed at the last moment to try to appear to undercut other businesses. Those other businesses have chosen to follow rather than take the high road. So this is a case where the government should come out and make the practice of displaying hotel pricing inclusive of all taxes and fees a legal requirement, just like with airplane tickets.
It isn't just "resort fees" that make a difference in price. TOTs, TBIDs, varying tax from one city to the next, etc. can also make a real difference sometimes.
I have had experience in an unbranded hotel that I booked on Priceline. It was a "resort" in its name. It had a large pool/fitness center that was public and people paid to get in, and you got access to that with the "resort fee." So I did not necessarily dispute that the place was a "resort." No Resort Fee was disclosed until I checked out. It was a flat $15. I thought it was odd I did not see this before when I searched the hotel (I knew what I was getting before I did the name your own price thing). It turns out this hotel charged a 8% resort fee if you booked through them on their website, no resort fee was being shown at all on Priceline, and then if you came in as a Priceline customer they just charged a flat $15. I felt as if I was being overcharged since my "price" was like $65. Actually the manager seemed very concerned and he pulled Priceline up and looked at it and saw that the fee was not being disclosed. He noted he had recently gone to Las Vegas and used Priceline and knew all about the resort fees and he was really surprised that it was not showing up right for his property. The manager offered a fee refund and seemed eager to look into the problem, I checked a couple months later and it appeared to be fixed on Priceline showing a $15 fee...
Of course the airlines have taken a step on this and with the varying baggage fees, seat fees, early check in fees, etc. they are on a path where the advertised price is not always that easy to compare either. But it is better than before.