RandomBaritone

Your implication that anyone who works for tips is looking for a "HAND OUT" is demonstrably false. As has been stated in the thread above, most industries in which tipping is expected pay below the prevailing minimum wage. The tips are simply considered a type of wages by the employer, the employee, and the IRS.

Your position -- that tips constitute a "HAND OUT" -- is a fringe view. You're welcome to encourage hospitality companies to pay their employees more, but until that day arrives, for heaven's sake, tip as appropriate.

sammiches

Cause Maria Shriver said I should leave a tip for something an employee is already being paid a wage for I should just do it? More often than not the room isn't 100% or I didn't even bother to get an upgraded room with my Marriott status. I tip room service and always leave cash for the attendant in the executive lounge. By the time I get out of the hotel my room is gonna cost me twice as much. How about the hotel pay their employees a fare wage and they won't have to spend money on this silly marketing campaign. I've had discussions with employees from the Renaissance Polat in Istanbul and the Courtyard Marriott Mumbai and they pay very poverty and encourage staff to ask or expect a tip.

"It would be my pleasure to open the lounge for your after hours sir, as long as I'm compensated."

satman40

Many companies pay a low wage, and tell the workers they can make it up in tips.

We live in a Hand Out Society, even on the street corner, including the Welfare people, our Government encourages it.

Have more kids, don't worry about going to school or even work we will give you a hand out.,,


Even in State Parks they say do not feed the animals,

Want your Maids to make more, pay them more., so they do not need to put their HAND OUT..,

JW76

I always leave them a few dollars ($5-$10). The maids are probably the lowest status and hardest working among all employees at a hotel and I think they deserve a little appreciation.

RandomBaritone

I won't be drawn into a political argument, but come on. "The Welfare people"? As someone who spent much of my childhood below the poverty line, and then raised myself up to a very comfortable living, let me remind you that you never know who among your friends and colleagues may at one time have been one of "the Welfare people."

My original point wasn't political at all, but rather a reminder that service employees who work for tips are NOT looking for a handout. The tips are considered by everyone in the industry to be a form of wages. If you don't like the policy -- I know I don't -- then work to change it.

dw

Some of the news outlets (including AP) are reporting that the Ritz Carlton is among the flags that will be included in this initiative. This may merely be a case of the writers making assumptions, so hopefully this will not be the case.

While the majority of Ritz Carltons are already arguably a step below luxury chains like Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, Peninsula, etc., it just seems way too tacky to me to be greeted with an envelope soliciting tips at a luxury property. (And yes, I'm someone who does tip housekeeping, regardless of whether it's a select service or a luxury property.)

ronin308

One of the problems I have with this, is that for the first time an actual employer is actually saying "we don't pay our employees enough to live, please feel free to make up the difference". A tip should not be used to ensure someone is making $x per hour but a bonus for providing good service. Either way the IRS is going to regard it as a part of the wage, just like they do when your employer gives you a bonus.

Another big problem is that especially in urban areas, many of the hotel staff are unionized and as at least one article points out make $18-20/hr. Why would I blindly tip someone making a decent wage like that?

pinniped

It's offensive to me that Marriott is asking its customers to directly pay its employees. Doesn't matter which brand...


I *have* tipped housekeeping on a few occasions...mainly at MVCI or Residence Inn after we've made a bigger-than-usual mess of a room due to a party or whatnot. But I don't need Marriott telling me I should do it, and I definitely don't do it on my standard business stays where I do not trash the room.

Some (not all) Ritzes definitely feel like a half-step down from the other luxury brands. Doing something tacky like this only makes that seem worse.

Reindeerflame

An alternative approach would be for Marriott to reduce the room rate to zero, and encourage hotel guests to leave an "appropriate amount" for their stay.

G702TT

I've never tipped a hotel maid once in my entire life and that encompasses more than 20 years of travel. This new trend of envelopes is not going to change my practice of paying only my room rate. The hotel is responsible for compensating their maids. Many echo the poverty sentiment that these particular employees are barely getting by. The reality of unionization paints a very different picture with the decent benefits and compensation that the unionized hotel service employees receive, especially in large cities. Its no coincidence that room rates are on the rise. The Las Vegas Culinary Workers Union (of which most Las Vegas maids are members of) is a prime example. Now there is the norm of resort fees for visitors staying on the strip and I imagine this will soon be the norm for other large properties in major cities. There is therefore no reason to be guilted into tipping a subset of employees that the hotel industry would like to think is in the category of those who should be tipped.

Rebelyell

From my blog. Hope it's okay to post:
. . Instead of paying its housekeeping staff a fair and decent wage the Marriott Corporation has a better idea. It’s attempting to browbeat its guests into paying the help.
. ..Marriott is going to put tip envelopes in every hotel room instructing its customers of their obligation to pay for Marriott’s hired help. This rather than simply paying them a decent wage.
There has been a movement for some time by America’s elites to browbeat us into leaving daily tips for the hotel maid. USA Today is so pro-tipping that they have printed obviously false information.
. ..In March of 2005 USA Today spent a day with a maid at an upscale Maryland hotel, going from room to room as the maid cleaned. Virtually no one tipped. One maid interviewed cleaned 14 rooms without receiving a single tip. In the face of this fact, USA Today printed the following:

Mike Lynn, a Cornell University Hotel School associate professor who studies tipping, cites polls that found only a third of hotel guests tip housekeepers. ‘The social norm is that you do (tip), though not everyone knows it.’

. . Consider this for a moment. The USA Today reporter just personally observed that very few hotel guests tip. Then a college professor allowed that two-thirds of hotel guests do not tip. And yet we are still told that, "The social norm is that you do (tip), though not everyone knows it." .Sorry, but if two-thirds of hotel guests don’t tip, then the social norm is not to tip.

. . The Marriott initiative, called “The Envelope Please,” is designed to educate the public of the need to tip hotel maids. Or, to put it another way, it’s designed to turn a non-tipped position into a tipped one, thus shifting the burden of paying the maids from their employer to the customer.
. . When we go to a restaurant we tip the waiter or waitress because we know they are only making $2.13 per hour. For good or bad, the system that has evolved so that waiters are almost completely dependent on tips. It's also created a surly class of waiters who feel they are entitled to a giant tip just for opening a bottle of wine (tips should be based on the cost of the food, not the wine).
. . Tipping the hotel maid is not the norm, however. And so to hire maids the hotels have to offer market wages. Hotels – like any business – have a simple formula for every employee hired: they pay as little as possible and as much as is necessary.
. . In some markets hotel maids are paid quite well. In Washington, D.C., maids earn almost $20 per hour, or $40,000 per year. In New York City maids earn in excess of $50,000 per year. If the hotels need help in attracting and keeping help, they should pay more, not browbeat the customer into giving tips.
. . For what it’s worth, sometimes I tip the hotel maid, sometimes I don’t. If I’m on the late side of checking out, I usually tip. If my children are with me, I tip, because they tend to really mess up a room. But if I’m by myself and don’t create a mess, then the compensation is the duty of the employer.
. . In other words, I tip on those occasions when my behavior might have caused the hotel maid to work above and beyond her usual amount. But I’m not going to tip someone extra just for doing their job.
. . As public policy, creating yet another tipped position is a step backwards. Our goal should be a society in which people are simply paid, not one in which more and more people are made dependent on tips.
. . We don't need a campaign designed to browbeat us, the customers, into paying for Marriott's hired help through tips. Instead, we need to start a campaign designed to browbeat Marriott into paying its employees fair, decent, and market wages.

fastflyer

Do you believe that tipping housekeeping attendants is standard, that is, the great majority of hotel customers do it?

Sousaphil

I'd much prefer having housekeeping wages fully baked into room rates. When I'm on the road 4-5 days a week, the last thing on my mind is making sure I have cash on hand for every possible tipping scenario. And on my 2-3 days at home, I don't want to have to make a trip to get cash just for tipping.

Since my company does not reimburse cash expenses, tipping can get expensive. Let's assume 3 nights a week for 50 weeks. That's up to $750 a year in un-reimbursed expense. I'm well-compensated, but that would still be a noticeable figure in my budget.

satman40

I grew up poor, so did my mother, she felt ashamed to ask for pill,samples, and often split her pills.

We all make pretty much the same, it is spending more than we make, and the mistakes we make, that causes us to be poor,

Most maids, and service people cut school, and made other mistakes...and all of them spend more than they make.

I hate it when the hidden charges creep up, when I plan a trip, I can only budget so much money...

POST THE REAL PRICE, if I can afford it, I like to know the price before I get there.

I can not afford to pay for birth control, and you can pay for my kids...Planed Parent Hood...

This mentality us killing this country..

SkiAdcock

Since tipping housekeeping is voluntary & not mandated one has the option of ignoring the envelope. However, if one is inclined to tip the suggestion is to do it daily rather than at the end of the trip to make sure the person cleaning the room receives it.

Here's the official press release from the Marriott website:

http://news.marriott.com/2014/09/mar...-and-a-wo.html

BTW - if this thread goes political my guess is the mod will send it to Omni PR



Cheers.