Marriott and Hilton have made it pretty clear that, for the most part, real hospitality and service are over. They are not part of the new business model. The new business model is lowest technically acceptable commodity. Marriott's CEO has literally said his role is to take care of the property owners, not guests. I'm sure Hilton is telling their investors the same thing. Clean rooms cost more than dirty rooms, so you get dirty rooms.

That said, as Hilton has hollowed out services at their FS properties, I've kind of gravitated towards Hampton and had mostly okay experiences. If the Hilton experience is barebones at every brand from W=A to Hampton, I might as well pay the Hampton price. The bed and shower aren't that much different. And that's all the big chain hotels are anymore - beds and showers.

Speaking of sweeping generalizations…

I don’t think “almost every day” is accurate.

And, as anecdotal evidence to the contrary, I recently stayed at an HIX that was limiting rooms to two towels (regardless of the number of guests) and had no hand soap for guest rooms or cream for coffee.

It really does boil down to ownership and management. Brand standards have loosened, allowing owners to cut corners.

I haven't noticed as big of a decline in Hilton Gardens. The last several I have stayed at have been consistently clean. Some older, some newer.

Sometimes HGI are cheaper than Hamptons. And with a better breakfast. My next few stays in the US are at HGI's and I have a stay at a main Hilton in SLC next week. I haven't seen the declines there.

I stayed at a HGI for 5 nights on Virginia Beach last year and I think I should have asked for housekeeping after the 3rd day because those rooms get stale fast.

OP, yes, I have, all around the US, so much so I am wary of HI, HGI in some locales, and a few others. Some very bad luck at Hiltons, except some really high ends.

May I ask which one? I stay often in the area and the last HI I was at was so dirty I wondered what happened. I mean, I literally found a press-on nail on the blow dryer cord in hot pink, stains, cracks, etc, as the OP is discussing. Very un-Chicago for most of my stays, and I will be spending a while at a new HI this year.

I'm at 116 nights in Hilton properties in 2022 and I commented a month of so back on the FT HH sub-forum about the general decline in routine maintenance and cleanliness in US at most Hilton brands in the last few years. This is a very US-specific problem as I've also stayed in France, UK and Germany at many properties and it was certainly not apparent that there had been any slip in standard in those countries. Most noticeable at US properties are very dirty public spaces with stained carpets, grubby mirrors and windows, dirty curtains and just grime and a general lack of care. This extends to the rooms themselves with dust on every surface, moldy showers, leaking and calcified showerheads and especially the HVAC systems which are usually caked in dust and dirt. I recently stayed at an Embassy suites at the Denver airport and the AC filter was so clogged with dust it was stopping the airflow almost completely. The COVID excuse is well past its sell by date and Hilton are charging very high prices in a lot of markets for a very sub-standard experiences IMHO... Attached is the state of the Denver Airport
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...434b7c0baf.jpg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...4bf5ab4afd.jpg
Embassy suites filters.

For several reasons, could you name at least the Northern Michigan HI? I'd say name the other one but I can see where you don't want to.

This is a great that thread but let’s cut down on the snark, OK?
 

Posters are allowed to talk about their experiences without being hassled for overgeneralization or other issues. The OP
was very forthcoming with the information on the particular properties and I think that should be enough for everyone to just lay off complaining about how this thread started. Thanks for understanding.

Squeakr

Co mod HH

My stays date back from when Hamptons were mostly exterior corridor motels and 5k point nights weren’t hard to find. I haven’t seen degradation in properties that I have returned to over the last 5-10 years. In fact, some have gotten better. But I run into a dog every once in a while, usually in the state of Georgia. In March, I booked a Hampton on points for one of my kids and he complained so hard that the points were refunded to my account. I keep track and won’t return to the bad ones.

For perspective, stay one night in a $100 room at the Park Inn in Albany Georgia.

A large part of the issue in lack of maintaining standards stems from the difficulty hospitality, and the service industry in general, has in attracting personnel. Wages and benefits are not particularly attractive, the chance for advancement limited and the hours and working conditions demanding. Until the industry begins to allocate more resources into attracting a workforce that is motivated to view their employment as a permanent position and perform adequately to meet brand standards, lapses in quality control will continue to plague the industry. One would think the current high hotel rates we are seeing would provide enough capital to fund more attractive salaries, but I suspect they are covering losses incurred when so many were hemorrhaging cash during the pandemic.
Well then wouldn't that make almost every post or thread on FT discussing personal experiences irrelevant? Not many of us can provide 100's of examples within a narrowly defined sample group. Asking if others have experienced the same, however, provides the opportunity to enlarge the sample group and provide enough data points that might indicate a trend.

Not really, because most of the posts on FT are in property or location-specific threads, which are sufficiently narrow as to make those experience-based statements useful. I was referring to the very broad, global-level statements. But I was also just being cranky, all done with that now, it's Friday! :D

Rising wage costs have a lot to do with it. I think there is a squeeze for these companies. If they want to hire more people, they have to raise the starting wage, and then they have to raise the wages of everyone already working there to be above that starting wage. I can see reluctance to hire more people because of this. But I also think that they assessed the market and made a broad based corporate decision without fully considering the long term effects (which is pretty typical of corporate decisions).

I didn't really mind the lack of housekeeping (except for 5 night stays...that gets pretty funky), but that has caused SOME properties to decline in quality of cleanliness, operations, etc.

Right now, the hotels are selling out. I suspect when the market softens (which it always does) they will reinstate some benefits and start having to work for their business again.

I think we are all in agreement that there are some properties much better, cleaner, and more maintained than others. I've been staying in Hamptons for 30 years. I am noticing a degradation in standards.

While I agree with you in principle, what you're saying will never happen. Hospitality has a long, long track record of low pay, little to no benefits and irregular-last minute scheduling. I.E. > the schedule week starts on Monday and there is still no schedule posted until maybe two days prior on Saturday afternoon. Hopefully you don't have plans for Monday because you might/probably will be working. The parent company has no say or jurisdiction in franchisees hiring practices for rank and file employees and each location sets their own pay rates and handbook/work rules (i.e. some places background check, drug screen, offer paid time off, medical/dental/vision, etc. and some offer none of the above or various combinations of such) which makes things a veritable Wild West.

Pre-pandemic, properties were making plenty of money for the owner, management company and parent company the same as right now. Except, now in some cases there is even a higher ADR and more revenue yet the same low pay, lack of bennies and irregular schedule that existed prior to the pandemic are still there because "with inflation raises are impossible right now". There is no incentive for anyone to allocate more resources because rank and file hourly staff are seen and mostly treated as 100% expendable. Always has been that way and likely it always will be. (FWIW, I've done over two decades in the industry for two corporately managed Marriott locations and for several mid and large sized franchise owners/management companies with Hilton.)

Properties operate like that because Hilton "doesn't know" it's going on. Understand this, people on this site have some ill conceived notion that the parent company is some type of Orwellian Big Brother that "knows everything" when in reality they are mostly clueless. Why is this? Very, very few people fill out post stay surveys and even fewer review properties via the online sites that count/are tracked towards a property's overall Salt Score ratings (as an example - Trip Advisor and Expedia count but Yelp does not).

Aside from QA audits there are no company reps. showing up at places unannounced and the last two years QA audits were either suspended or when they restarted last year they were primarily CleanStay focused. They are now happening but the amount of properties in an auditor's portfolio is tremendous which is why the audits are supposed to be bi-annual but rarely are unless it's at the beginning and end of the same year. Will this change things substantively? Who knows, but at the very least eyeballs are being put on things for the first time in a long time.

This is all across all brands - Hilton, Marriott, IHG . All of them have older properties that are dogs and new ones that are good and ones that are maintained well. Have stayed in some Homweoods & Hamptons that were absolute pits. The newer ones were pretty nice. Stayed in run down RI's but nicer ones too. As said above - key is to check the reviews for any hotel you are staying at , especially the latest most recent ones. Have stayed at way nicer newer Wingates compared to the older Hampton or Homewood in that area. Research is your best friend !

I've noticed it too. In my decade plus of Hilton loyalty they've gone from being one of the most consistent brands to being much more disappointing.

The quality of service from the employees is lower and I understand that being a nationwide issue. But breakfasts are worse, the rooms are in far worse condition and are clearly not being renovated and there are definitely cleanliness issues. I'm much more likely to book a newer Holiday Inn Express for a similar stay than a Hampton unless it's a new construction and the TA reviews are good.