nacho

Same with RI PHX Mesa East, CY Hamburg Germany offer every 3rd day housekeeping. It's possible to get extra towels or change your own sheet.

I just stayed at HI Hamburg Nord Germany, full housekeeping is now offered, and if we skip it we can either get a present or 500 point per day for skipping housekeeping.

kumarshah

Stayed at Springhill Suites San Diego Bayfront. Nice property, excellent views but Housekeeping is on 3-day gaps ONLY. You can't get it more frequently on request. We were there for 5 nights, and room only got cleaned once during our stay, and that too when we asked on the 3rd day of our stay otherwise it was scheduled for the day after.

Out of my Element

Fairfield in Palm Beach same thing. Every 3 days. We had to go to the desk to request extra shampoo and toilet paper and towels for the pool, which didn't have any. And then they came on Day 2 and took our extra shampoo and towels (but at least left the TP). So we had to do the towels and shampoo thing again and this time we hid them so when they came 3 days later they didn't take them from us again.

There were always service carts in the hall, so they were cleaning SOME rooms. Just not ours.

friedablass

They seriously took your shampoo back on a day they were officially not even supposed to be cleaning your room???

The service carts are there to clean rooms where people checked out of. At least that's what their excuse will be.

In any case, this no-housekeeping-due-to-COVID business, needs to be put to bed. Bring back regular housekeeping and let people who don't want it opt out.

Out of my Element

They did. They left extra soap, but only one full shampoo (those little Paul Mitchell tubes). We had 2 full and 1 partial when we left the room.

Somehow we got our cleanings moved up a day. And I edited the first post, it was a Fairfield, not a Springhill.

stuartpig

I don’t often have housekeeping in but when I do I hide all shampoo etc otherwise they leave you up the creek with nothing left next day. It’s partly why I agate having them in. Once let them in after 5 nights as we wanted a clean bed. They did everything but change the sheets (the sheets had blood on as husband has eczema on his foot that bleeds so we knew they weren’t fresh).

The Road Goes On Forever

Pre-pandemic housekeeping is not something that anyone is going to be seeing at most limited service properties regardless of brand for the foreseeable future, if ever again. At best, places eventually transition to where at check in everyone is opted out unless you choose to opt in on a specific day(s), but the idea of having things opted in daily isn't happening because there is no staffing for it and the bulk of the travelling public does not want it. Daily housekeeping was already falling out of favor prior to the pandemic. Franchisees desire to make the labor savings permanent along with guests' continued COVID fear of not wanting people in their rooms during their stay equals what you get today.

FWIW, because of this thread I took a look at the real numbers at the HIS where I work and overall for February the percentage of guests who have opted in for service is around 3%, with some days a bit more and other days being truly zero. My place is not an outlier either. That's what most limited service properties are seeing. With that being the case, why would properties opt everyone in for something that the overwhelming bulk of the travelling public does not want? That would be a total waste of time and the limited resources that most places are already stretched too thin on.

friedablass

That's your ongoing narrative and I'll respect that. But:

1. The numbers from 1 single property out of thousands upon thousands doesn't give a true picture. Until we don't have a true survey with hard data from millions of the leisure and business traveling public we won't know the truth.
2. COVID Fear?? If they're afraid of COVID, they shouldn't be traveling, IMHO. Anyway, why are they still afraid of COVID at this point when the majority of the population is vaccinated, cases are plummeting, and the current strain doesn't usually present with severe symptoms? But this all besides the point. Fear of COVID is no longer a good excuse to avoid housekeeping just to not run into people. Are these travelers otherwise locking themselves into their room while on vacation to avoid running into other people? And at limited service properties to boot?
3. I can't understand why when people are on vacation or traveling for business they want to be busy doing their own housekeeping and cleaning up after themselves or alternatively coming back after a day out to a mess of a room. To me the whole point of staying in a hotel is having the opportunity to just get up and go out to explore the destination I chose to go to, and come back after a full day to a made up, tidy, and clean room. I don't want to spend the first hour or two of my day putting my room back together into the state I want to see it upon my return and I certainly don't want to come back finding my own mess there. And yes, maybe I'm OCD, but that's how long it would take me. That's what I do at home every day and am happy to do so, however when I'm vacation that's exactly what I want to be on - vacation. And when my spouse or I travel on business we are on really tight schedules so appreciate that the hotel is taking care of housekeeping so that we can focus on what we're there for.

Just my 2 cents . I'll stick to the properties that offer housekeeping and there are thankfully plenty that have brought it back.

twitch76

You bring a perspective that helps us remember that there are lots of travelers outside of our FlyerTalk bubble. Thanks.

However, I’m not sure that your conclusion follows from your data. Unless those customers were consistently asked, in a manner that genuinely invited a “yes,” then I’m not sure that the data means much of anything.

On my recent stays, housekeeping has generally not been mentioned at all during checkin, and I suspect most guests don’t think to ask. If it *is* mentioned, it’s something like, “We’re only doing housekeeping on request, let us know if you need any towels, and you can just leave your trash outside your door.” That’s neither inviting nor hospitable. It also provides no idea how many customers would prefer housekeeping,,, just an idea of how many don’t bother request an exception to the status quo.

Maybe your hotel is consistently offering guests the option of housekeeping, in a manner that genuinely invites a response of “yes.” But if it is, it’s the very rare exception.

(ETA: My theory is that the industry desperately *wants* to get rid of daily housekeeping, so practices and checkin conversations are framed in such a way as to discourage guests from requesting housekeeping. Then the industry can tout numbers like you just did and say, “we’re just giving guests what they want.”)

The Road Goes On Forever

The industry has wanted to get rid of daily housekeeping for several years. The pandemic has just given franchisees the cover to be able to demand it and pull it off. Even if the parent companies insisted (and they aren't) that all properties bring back daily housekeeping it would be an unfunded mandate since right now people aren't applying for those types of jobs or if they are, they ghost the interview process enmasse. The parent companies have no part in the hiring process and the owner is under no obligation to raise pay rates or to offer benefits.

Nothing is framed. To some degree management companies are going to do whatever they want regardless of what the travelling public wants unless the parent companies drops a mandate in which right now for the most part isn't happening. The owner or the management makes the decision as to what they want offered and that is what's implemented. At my place at check in we put in an insert in every key packet as to what is/is not offered. Do people ever read that? No because the bulk of the travelling public are bumpkins that could care less, but that's what the management company wants so we do it. Every guest is also told what we do and we don't do at check in. Take it or leave it. We've been doing that for nine months and again, very few people ask for housekeeping at check in nor do they reach out and ask during their stay. We tell them it's available and they choose not to avail themselves of it be it a family coming for a lacrosse tournament or a member of the Executive Leadership team at UPS who has lifetime Diamond status with almost fifteen million points.

Does every property do that? Of course not. Unlike the assumption of the poster above you, I've done this for a bit and have friends, prior co-workers and acquaintances at many other properties (PHL Airport Marriott - Daytona Beach Hilton Resort - Lancaster PA Marriott - Indianapolis Marriott East - etc.) that I also talk to and know what they're doing the same as I see the owner for the property I work at and talk with him about what he sees/wants/thinks.

Like it or not, the game has changed. If you're waiting for the industry to bring back what existed prior to COVID across the board you'll be waiting a long time There will always be places that will offer daily housekeeping but we're never going back to a place where it's done everyday at every property, period.

GUWonder

Higher labor costs and staffing availability are just an excuse, because it's really about the property owners/operators seizing on an opportunity to increase their profit margins in a way that they were seeking to do even before the pandemic. And unfortunately, what owners/operators see in one market often ends up spreading more in other markets too as monkey-see-monkey-do is not limited to just domestic actors in the industry but also crosses boundaries internationally. [It's no coincidence that Marriotts' expansion in even high cost parts of Europe is increasingly about growing the "limited service" footprint.]

Unfortunately, this kind of dynamic with housekeeping is probably also going to end up meaning more resistance to giving and/or delivering complimentary late-checkout benefits. And after customers have been "schooled" enough by property owners/operators/employees by facing resistance when wanting late check-out, daily housekeeping or whatever else may even be a justified expectation for the stay, the customers demand it less and get it less. The customers lose long term, the owners/operators gain at least short-term, and the employees are in the hot-seat until the customer "education" campaign is completed.

kaizen7

The big issue here is the brand owner, aka Marriott let these shenanigans occurred.

They fear to offend their precious customers if they strictly enforcing their brand standards.
If the brands standard dictate that hotel have to provide daily make up room and turndown service, then demand all hotels in that brand to do that. Nothing less.
If they failed to provide those then downgrade them to say Courtyard.

.

The Road Goes On Forever

What GUWonder just posted is spot on.

twitch76

To be clear, the example you have provided is PRECISELY the sort of thing that I mean when I say that the conversation is framed in a particular way in order to get a desired outcome. Why do you suppose management wants it done that way? So they can control the wording of something they know the “bumpkins” will never read. (Your word, not mine.)

Not once in the last 9 months has a front desk clerk said to me, “would you like daily housekeeping while you are with us?” Instead, it has not been mentioned at all, or it has been a statement or communication that makes it pretty clear that daily housekeeping is not provided unless I go out of my way to request it. It has not been a question that invites a “yes,” in response. You may think that most FD clerks are honestly asking guests what they want, but that does not match my experience.

My point is that there is no statistical validity to any claim similar to “only 3% of guests want daily housekeeping.”

It would be more accurate to say “only 3% of guests are: A) adequately aware that they can request daily housekeeping, B) feel genuinely invited to do so, and C) care enough choose that option.” The sample space of people who meet conditions A and B is so infinitesimally small as to make the analysis of C completely irrelevant. I suspect that most guests actually choose the default option and don’t have much of a preference.

(And to keep this related to Marriott, I recently had a 9-night stay in a Fairfield. They were the exception in recent travels… despite the TV splash screen claiming that housekeeping is only provided on request, daily housekeeping was being provided to all guests unless they declined. This was never mentioned at check-in, I just discovered that it was the case while I was there.)

All of that said, I think you are mostly right… daily housekeeping is not coming back (as the default option) any time soon. That will be the case until enough incidents occur (vandalism, deaths, contraband, illegal activity, excessive wear-and-tear) that could have been detected sooner with regular room/guest checks. Then the pendulum will swing the other way, as management will calculate a different cost/benefit analysis.

cbn42

I doubt enough such incidents would ever occur to justify having daily housekeeping. These things are rare, and when they occur, there is little additional cost if a few days pass before they are discovered. Of course, someone who is engaging in such activities can easily put up the "do not disturb" sign.

Quite frankly, I am amazed that daily housekeeping lasted this long. In a few decades, we will probably view it just like full service at gas stations, available in developing countries with cheap labor, or at very upscale properties. The same is happening with cashiers at retail stores.