sbrower

I have seen a disturbing trend in hotels (not truly luxury - but Ventana Canyon Resort, Hyatt Monterey and Paris Las Vegas) and these do not appear to be pandemic related:

1. No more room service. MAYBE delivery in a bag, but even that is rare. I was shocked that last weekend, at Paris Las Vegas, I learned that they had NO room service. The alternative is to go to a website where some of the restaurants, in the hotel, are listed on a website and will deliver a bag to your door. But, even though some of the restaurants open earlier for "in person" dining, the website portal doesn't open until 7am, so the earliest delivery is about 7:30am, which doesn't work well for a flight at 7:30am. For the Hyatt Monterey they have a new option - husbands go down to the bar, at dinner, order food "to go" (delivery is not offered), and then take a bag of food back to your room (it was raining like crazy, so this wasn't ideal).

2. Customer service is off-site. When you push the button for "At your service" or similar, you are connected to someone sitting in their living room in another state, handling a large number of hotels, who tries to answer your question. But, when you ask a question like "Where is my conference group having their meeting tonight" (Ventana Canyon Tucson), they go offline for 10 minutes because the hotel hasn't given them a list of events. So, when you call and ask "Is there a good xxx restaurant in the area?" they are just going onto Tripadvisor to answer your questions, which isn't very helpful. And if you say "It seems like the hot water isn't working" they have no idea.

Is this a permanent trend?

MSPeconomist

Some of this depends on the type/category of hotel. I would expect more at Ventana Canyon Resort than at Paris Las Vegas, for example.

1. I hope you really don't mean literally that HUSBANDS go down to bar, ,order, and take bag back to rooms, This is incredibly sexist and presumably would be illegal in at least most of the USA if only HUSBANDS can order and take meals to go in a hotel.

2. Some customer service (especially concierge type functions) being off site could be a good thing: a minimum wage front desk agent in many properties isn't likely to know or have the time/skills to find restaurant suggestions. OTOH, no hot water is the type of issue that's best solved locally and I would hope that a call to the front desk would lead to a resolution.

sbrower

I realized the sexist tone of "husbands" but, to be clear, there were about 5 other males at the bar waiting for "to go" and, at least to my observation, no women. This obviously wasn't a hotel requirement (i.e. - discriminatory) and I apologize if I didn't phrase my own observation correctly.

Regarding the calls to customer service, I don't believe the option to contact the front desk existed at either the Hyatt Monterey or the Ventana Canyon (but I may be mistaken).

GetSetJetSet

Paying more and getting less is unfortunately the future for hotels and every other industry.

offerendum

Not so sure about it.I think that already at the moment it is not everywhere. But it's hard for me to imagine that when everything is really open again and a few years have passed, there won't be strong competition for quality again. Apart from that, there have always been places in the hospitality industry where the price-performance ratio was poor.

Satie

I would tend to agree. In my experience, in Europe, in all the luxury hotels I’ve been in the last months it’s pretty much back to full service (FS, Oetker, MO, independants SLH/LHW, Belmond etc.), especially this year. Levels of service are similar to 2019, albeit with higher prices.
Although, I still avoid supposedly luxury properties of Marriott and Hyatt, as they continue to invoke Covid-19 to justify basic service cuts.

scented

The leap from good to great is only about people. It can only be delivered by people. So what's the point of having beautiful architecture but reduced / non-existent service levels at incredibly high prices? You can rent an AirBnB for that, essentially. I can accept high prices if the service delivery is right. Healthy profits are also fine, but what's currently happening in the US and also elsewhere is certainly not okay and I'd rather not stay then. Can stay at a villa or private residence instead.

In a city like Paris, all of the palaces have an incredible hard product... what's the differentiation? Service.

behuman

You are perfectly right scented ! In my case already pre Covid it is the "uncertainity" (what I hated most are rooms not ready by 4 PM - horribly arrogant places like the Beau Rivage Palace in Lausanne or worse the Vier Jahreszeiten in Hamburg spring to mind where this happened regularly) regarding service and the "excuse culture" that made me abandon the classsic luxury hotels. Covid is just a new stupid excuse for all this nonsense. Indeed I became a big fan of Airbnb, but also smaller boutique places - not necessarily expensive - or places where I am known and as a repeat guest get what is normal. Relais & Châteaux properties most of the time are still a good option, especially when they have gourmet restaurants.

offerendum

Unfortunately there are often more reasons to avoid them, nevertheless I often stay at Marriott properties and have reserved one more this year. But often I´m not very happy with them.....

Aventine

Or good people. Good people giving great service. I just want an honest effort to be truthful. My current hotel situation is generally hotels wanting to make profits and deliver as little value as possible.

Adelphos

The two items you focus on (less room service, fewer "concierge" folks who can help you on site) are trends that started well before the pandemic

richarddd

Most companies are in business to make a profit. The best route to a high profit is to maximize revenue while limiting costs. People, especially good people (aka service), are a major expense. Therefore, they'll charge as much as they can and provide as little service as they can. Of course, there's a relation between the service they provide and the revenue they can charge. It's a balance and it depends on what the market demands. None of this is new.

richarddd

Even with incredible hard products, there are still significant differences, such as location, view and decor. Not everyone wants the same level of service - things like a butler who deals with requests in moments, a concierge's ability to get a restaurant reservation on short notice, staff that greets everyone by name, food quality, etc. For some these are necessary, others these may view these as nice but not particularly important.

offerendum

The style alone is very different, also of course location, service, restaurants etc

m0hamed

Indeed. Sadly, hotels I frequent in Australia are still providing the same level of service they did during lockdown.

For e.g. the PH SYD has a menu with four main course options only and they only offer three cocktails for in room dining or by the pool. After your first day it gets very old. Raining guest services or reception will often ring for over four mins and they are not responding to requests via the app.

I don't care where the person answering chat or app requests is. I know many hotels outsource this service. As long as it gets actioned swiftly, I'm fine with it. The issue is during lockdowns the rates reflected the lack of service offering and now they are back to RACK without the service improving. I decided not to return until this is rectified.