Hotel Amenities in the Future

Pre-Covid, since taking early retirement, I have spent 4+ months away from home each year and I haven’t stayed in a hotel for over 5 years, so this wouldn’t have any impact on my travels.

I don’t really care what the motivation is for hotels adopting eco-friendly policies. If they do it, great. I’ve always thought that the daily changing of towels was wasteful; however, now that many hotels say they are not doing it, it happens anyway.
I never take baths, so if tubs disappear, I don’t care.
What does rile me is charging for wi-fi. Hilton I’m looking at you. In this day and age, when even modest b&bs have free wifi, it’s ridiculous to charge $25/day for it.
The so-called resort fees are just a way to make the price look lower, until you are presented with your bill. Many times there is nothing that would remotely qualify as a resort. If the presence of a fitness center constitutes a resort, it would be easy enough to charge those who use it.

It might be both cost cutting and the environment. Water is a precious finite resource. Having traveled in places where water is a scarcity, I understand this. I don’t change my bed or towels every day at home so that wouldn’t bother me. And while we have a nice tub in our bathroom, we never use it. We prefer showers. I also notice the trend of hotels putting bath gel and shampoo in dispensers rather than small plastic disposable containers that fill up the landfills. That certainly helps the environment. Perhaps also because I live in the drought stricken high desert of Nevada, I am more conscious of conserving water.

As alluded to, these are trends that have been building for years. Yes, they save costs, but that is as much for the guest as the corporation, environmentalism is mostly a PR move, but the daily cleaning of rooms, changing linens, and towels, are all wasteful to begin with. I usually already put the "do not disturb" sign out for most of my stay, and if the trend continues, maybe it will resolve the "Tip or not Tip Housekeeping" argument that pops up from time to time.

As for amenities in general, I am not one to want a fancy room with people falling over to please me (some are, they like to be pampered and live better on vacation than at home). Just focus on a quiet, comfortable bed, decent climate control, and a refrigerator, and I would be happy.

I am pro anything that any corporation does to try to improve the environment. It may be a moneymaker for them but at the same time they are on the front line to address these things- with so much waste. Water is a very precious commodity the world over. It starts one step at a time until it becomes normal. As a traveler I try to leave a very small footprint. Luxury enough getting to travel. I know my plane flights etc leave a negative draw on the planet. Sacrificing small luxuries such as daily clean towels etc, seem to be a very small price to pay in the grand scheme of things. It’s hard to come to a good place with this and leave a zero footprint but to try and give up some luxe things only seems fair.

I think it is just the tip of a lot of icebergs. I think there will be a number of changes especially in retail once the pandemic is finally behind us. I would not want to be an owner of mall these days. The number of private retail/restaurants that have gone out of business around us is substantial and they will not be back. We have large, redeveloped mall near us anchored by Sears and Macys -- both gone. There is no one left to fill that amount of retail space.

Recently in a Marriott in St. Louis with the three day policy. While they were not changing towels, there were no towel hooks to hang up wet towels. Obviously the threes day greatly reduces the need for staff. The afternoon doorman was the breakfast waiter in the morning.

This will be a huge transitional period. And we will adjust. We have no chose.

We flew to Denver a week ago or so for a funeral, and the hotel we'd booked for a 3-night stay asked us if we wanted daily housekeeping. We said no. We'd also just come home from a two-week road trip from MN to New Mexico before that, and had been asked at least one of our multi-night bookings if we wanted daily housekeeping. We'd booked an entire week at an accommodation in Santa Fe that also asked if we wanted any housekeeping during our stay so I do think that this will be a "thing", and we're OK with it.

We both much prefer showers to bathtub but families with very small children might feel otherwise.

Editing to add: soundproofing, soft-closing inner-hall doors, mini fridge, decent towels (not thin), 24-hour brewed coffee in the lobby (better than in-room makers), racks/shelf for getting bags off the floor, and nightstands+ decent reading lamps on BOTH sides of the bed are on the wish list. Queen/double beds with a nightstand/lamp on only one side and the other side nearly up against a wall leave one of us with no place to set a water glass, spectacles, book, etc. Newer hotels also appear to be going sans carpet in their rooms, a big plus in my book! Stayed a night in a new Epic hotel on the last trip, and appreciated a floor we could tell was very clean.

Oh, and an elevator if it's a multi-story thing.

Usually, hotels make their money with many things that hurt the environment. So if for once they make money with something that helps the environment, that's perfectly fine with me. I'd consider that a win-win situation.

There are certain things that I consider essential in terms of cleanliness, but a lot of the daily housekeeping is really unnecessary for my tastes. Why do I need the floor mopped every day if I am staying only for three days? I don't do that every day at home either. (I'd prefer them to mop under the bed once before I come!) In many cases, I actually do try to find the housekeeping before they show up, give them their tip, and tell them to please skip my room and just take a longer break.

I don't need a bathtub, I take showers. And the last thing I need is a big representative hotel lobby. I remember the hotel lobby of our Manhattan hotel which encompassed a whole block, making the hotel appear luxurious and generous with space. The opposite was true, the room was so tiny we hardly found a spot to put our suitcase. If they had given each room one square foot of that lobby space, it would have been a lot more useful.

Frank said: > Obviously the three day greatly reduces the need for staff. . . .

I've been at a few domestic hotels with reduced changing options, where they were changing the towels & sheets daily anyway. Chatting with the housekeepers, some mentioned that it was taking work away from them. That is they didn't want to have to cover more rooms and have less staff.

I think that hotels in the US could do with more separation by service level. Maybe thats why the European star rating system makes more sense than the arbitrary "quality" ratings used in the US. I could live without a fitness center and a pool. I like a mini-fridge, but could do without a mini-bar. In-room coffee makers never make good coffee to me, but I know some people can't do without.

I like the service level of the RSE hotels. Its just a problem that in the US, "mom & pop" hotels and non-chain hotels are suspect.

Just focus on a quiet, comfortable bed, decent climate control, and a refrigerator, and I would be happy.

I am with Paul. For me, add quality bed linens, shower with good pressure/hot water, and a kettle for making tea with a decently sized mug available. Ah, and good soundproofing between rooms.

Hmmmm my list is getting long . . .

Edit to add: and hooks !! Good hooks to hang jackets, scarves, day bags on, as well as hooks in the bathroom for towels . . .

decent climate control

Well... in terms of environmental concerns, we'll have to admit that that's much more of an issue than towels. I am always amazed at the wisdom of former generations who knew how to handle heat intelligently just by the way they planned their houses, windows, and shutters, and how they were able to keep rooms cool without such a thing as an air conditioning system. Nowadays, I see people opening up their big south-facing windows wide in summer, and then complaining about the heat.

Edit to add:

Edit to add: and hooks !!

Yes please! I never get why hotels are so stingy with hooks. Probably their interior design person tells them that hooks are ugly. But where do they expect me to put wet towels, on the bed?

good soundproofing between rooms.

Another big yes please! Hotels advertise with how quiet they are, and sure, there is no big road nearby... but then you have a room with paper thin walls where you don't need to turn on your own TV in order to follow the movie.

Honestly, we found hotel staff wanting to clean our room every day annoying. And in this time when employees are so hard to find, it will make life easier for hotel management to hire fewer people. I realize that this is not going to happen, but fewer employees should = more pay for those employees.

The one amenity I appreciate but hasn't been mentioned yet is an iron and ironing board. Business trips I pack cotton dress shirts that wrinkle as soon as I look at them, and I seem to have a liking for silk or silk blend casual clothes for vacation; these aren't suitcase friendly either.

In some cases, it's actually international tourism that has spoiled good traditions, especially when hotel proprietors find that they can save or make money out of something.

In Germany for instance, breakfast used to be included by default. Now, you have to look really closely if the hotel is only so inexpensive because they will charge you a high additional fee for breakfast. It has become a lot more complicated to really compare rates.

Same thing goes for tips. 10 or 20 percent tipping was unheard of in Europe since restaurant and hotel staff don't depend on tips for their income. In some countries like Greece you would only round up to the nearest number. American tourists with their tipping habits which assume that tips are part of their income have made waiters and waitresses expect much higher tips now.

American tourists with their tipping habits which assume that tips are
part of their income have made waiters and waitresses expect much
higher tips now.

Do they expect tips from everybody or just Americans?

I’ll chime back in on the hooks question. We recently stayed in a not-cheap hotel in Boston. I was surprised to see just one hook for towels in the bathroom. The now requisite notice about saving the environment by not changing towels daily was there, but one couldn’t get two towels to dry if they were hung on top of each other. We wound up using the door knob as a second hook. How much could a second hook cost?

Must be tough to be in the hotel business with so many people with their own likes and dislikes which includes travelers and business people. I wish all hotels were built with noise reducing walls, excellent heating and AC systems, WiFi included in the price and a good shower.

I don't need housekeeping service every day. Just give me at least 2 days worth of towels and as someone said, a place to hang them to dry. Take out the minibars and replace with a noise free working small refrigerator. I never pay extra for breakfast in a hotel, (especially in Europe) and rarely eat dinner in a hotel. I don't care about fancy interior designs as well, just be clean.

When traveling without an event (wedding, visiting) and just traveling as a tourist, I would say the amount of waking hours spent in my hotel probably averages 4-5 hours a day.

Also, train the front desk about the area of the hotel. Especially in the US, most workers live so far away from the hotel, they haven't a clue where to eat or for that matter, have trouble giving directions.

You think hotel owners are silently stalking this forum. I know I would if I were them.

Do they expect tips from everybody or just Americans?

Oh, from everybody, by now. We still remember hotel staff refusing a tip in Greece; it was against their honor. I doubt that you would have that experience anywhere nowadays.

I wish all hotels were built with noise reducing walls, excellent
heating and AC systems

Yes, would be nice, but I am willing to make concessions according to regional traditions. If I travel to Greece in winter, I must take warm clothes and can't expect rooms to have efficient heating. If I travel in Northern Europe, I can't expect rooms to have air conditioning, and if it's hot outside, I'll simply have to get fresh air in at night and keep the windows closed during the day (which I don't mind because I am not sitting in my hotel room during the day anyway).

Take out the minibars and replace with a noise free working small
refrigerator

Yes please!

You think hotel owners are silently stalking this forum.

Well, I hope they are! :-)

We always refuse daily room service, we don't like anyone in the room when we are not there. We just hit up the housekeeping, if we see them for fresh towels if needed. This is making Airbnb sound better and better. As long as I can find that extra pillow in the closet and that dry cleaning bag for my dirty clothes I am good!

Also, train the front desk about the area of the hotel. Especially in
the US, most workers live so far away from the hotel, they haven't a
clue where to eat or for that matter, have trouble giving directions.

You think hotel owners are silently stalking this forum. I know I
would if I were them.

I'm often surprised/frustrated/amused how little knowledge some people have in their job/product/surroundings in the service and retail sectors. In a time before cellphones and internet my wife and I were staying in a mid-range chain hotel. We hadn't rented a car for the trip but decided to get one for the day. There was a large sign in the hotel lobby and also our room for a rental car company with a partnership with the hotel and to ask the front desk if we wanted to book a car. So I asked the young guy at the front desk where to rent the car. He had a deer in the headlights look and didn't know what to do, but then, with a look of relief on his face that he'd solved the problem he handed me the yellow pages .🤣

Where i have stayed or still stay in France and Germany in Pensionen or two star hotels in the summer, AC is not available unless you want to pay extra for it, which I decline anyway when asked at check-in. That was in Paris.

I ask the front desk on restaurant recommendations, turned out worth it in Vienna, nice inexpensive and decent places, usually with a mixture of locals and tourists. I also use the front desk staff for directions regarding getting from A to B in the city using public transport, or taking day out trips outside the city. Going by rental car is not an option.

I’m a little conflicted about the changing policies. We’ve always embraced the environmental policies suggested by hotels. We didn’t need our towels changes every day, I can make my own bed and I’d rather not be governed by the housekeeeping time table. However, this summer we had a long (2 month) stay in a mid-range US hotel chain that used the 3/4 day housekeeping service. Unfortunately, they were not staffed to the levels necessary to achieve that, as they were routinely at capacity. 3/4 became 7 days routinely. I don’t mop/vacuum my floor every day at home, but I don’t live in one room either, and my towels are a better quality so they perform adequately for a week. By day 7 things were pretty grungy. It wasn’t a deal breaker, but I am hoping that if these policies become the rule, hotels will staff to levels that insure service.

cameras on stairs?

I’m retired now but used to travel often for work. I really appreciated the hotels that had the included a balanced breakfast small buffet, so I didn’t waste time ordering and arrival time to a manufacturing site would be more predictable. We also enjoy that amenity when traveling on vacation.

We use our bath towels at home 3x before washing, so reusing a towel is fine. And since the soap is in dispensers, that doesn’t need managing daily. When I saw housekeeping in the hall (pre-COVID), I would tell them to skip my room and just hand me coffee packs and would exchange towels in the hall. I definitely prefer the coffee in the room vs. the lobby! I want to drink a cup before getting dressed, and I can make it stronger than the lobby coffee.

I much prefer a shower to a bathtub in a hotel for cleanliness. At home I use both types.

Another perk of non-daily housekeeping service is that I can leave a slightly damp outfit out drying on the bathroom rack instead of needing to move it to the closet.

I much prefer a shower to a bathtub in a hotel for cleanliness.

Oh yes... It may be just my personal neuroticism, but I really can't stand the idea of taking a bath in a bathtub a total stranger lay in just yesterday. And I really don't care how many times the housekeeping has scrubbed that bathtub in between.

I definitely prefer the coffee in the room vs. the lobby! I want to
drink a cup before getting dressed, and I can make it stronger than
the lobby coffee.

LOL, I'm with you on this, Jean, except that the in-room coffee we've been provided with, on more recent stays, has been closer to hot brown-colored water than anything remotely resembling joe! Throwing something on just to trot to the lobby to take a couple cups of better brew (and they have almost aways been better) back to the room is preferable to THAT. Bleh.

Ah yes, The coffee maker in the hotel room...that is so nice when they have it! I was just in Vegas and styed at a property on the strip and with Starbucks in most lobby's there is zero chance of a coffee maker in your room. The Instant coffee packets from Starbucks are really very good (I buy the huge pack from Costco when they go on sale and put 10 packs in my bug out bag), but then I need my cream, so there is that.

I wonder if we couldn't have hotels with scrubbing robots controlled by the housekeeping staff which would quickly and very thoroughly scrub all tiles, bathtub, shower tray (cleaning the shower windows at the same time), wet room floors, toilet and bathroom counter.

Takes away the chance of missing germs, takes away the gross jobs, reassures guests, and makes the housekeeping job much more pleasant....

Tom_MN, I’m with you. You can’t leave your house without being bombarded with surveys. Just leave me alone!

Yeah, those surveys, including those at shops and restaurants, are just a way to get your contact info so they can sell it to telemarketers. So much for privacy.

We recently got one of those robot vacuum cleaners (like a Roomba) and contrary to expectations, it does a pretty decent job with minimal interaction. So robot room cleaning is probably coming sooner than you think.

Re: in-room coffee -- apartment in Budapest intgoduced us to Nestlé 3-in-1 coffee packs (with creamer and sugar) so we pick up a box or two in Europe and carry for early-morning coffee fixes. All you need is a mug, hot water, and something to stir.

“Re: in-room coffee -- apartment in Budapest intgoduced us to Nestlé 3-in-1 coffee packs (with creamer and sugar) so we pick up a box or two in Europe and carry for early-morning coffee fixes. All you need is a mug, hot water, and something to stir.”

Laura B, we had a fellow volunteer bring some of those 3-in-1 packs to Cambodia, and they were great when we were working out at villages.

I bring the Nescafe (Nestle product) Tasters Choice French Roast packets - in fact I’m in a hotel room right now staring at the box, so I can make my in-room coffee as strong as I like. Agree with a previous comment - the coffee provided in the room to make is just a starting point to add more coffee strength to it!

I wonder if in-room safes will be something that begin to disappear? I've always brought a large amount of cash with me, but now that we're becoming more cashless, I wonder if safes won't be as necessary. Still have laptops and such that i should store, but sometimes I need to charge mine while I'm out of the room so it doesn't go in the safe anyway.

They'll have to make those larger, or they can disappear, for all I care. Most of those safes are too small to even fit my thin 13'' ultrabook in there, so no good for me.

In the US, I prefer the less expensive inns to the Hiltons and Marriotts because they have refrigerators rather than minibars. At a recent stay at what would be an expensive hotel if we hadn't been using points, the sign said that the minibar is not for personal use. I will not stay there again-there was a Residence Inn close by and I bet those rooms have refrigerators. I confess I sometimes miss room service-the delivery services are so much more expensive.

One advantage to staying in a B&B in London is the availability of a tea maker. Having that or a coffee maker certainly helps. The room safes are usually small, but no matter . I never use them anyway in Europe or in the US. The passport, now the CDC card, plastic, and cash I carry on me.

the sign said that the minibar is not for personal use

I've seen signs like that before too, and I find that extremely unfriendly. What do they care as long as all their stuff is back in there when I leave? Another good reason for not wanting housekeeping to enter my room...

Some hotels have mini-bars with sensors. They can tell if you have taken an item out to eat or drink, with the idea that you can replace it the next day with that same item purchase cheaply at a store. That is also why you can't use them for your own items. If you move things around to fit your own stuff in there, it will affect the sensors.

Seriously? I didn't know that. Well, yes, there is all this talk about "intelligent" fridges that will order milk when it's empty, so it makes sense a hotel proprietor could use that technology for such a purpose.

There is an easy way around that though. I never manage to "travel light" without checked luggage anyway, so what I do for longer trips is I pack a small, lightweight ice chest that I can use as a makeshift fridge at my destination. May sound crazy, but it's really not as bulky as it sounds. It just so fits into my suitcase, and of course I cram it full with other stuff, so I am not transporting empty space. A nice side effect is that it provides great protection for fragile souvenirs on my way back, or for liquids or potentially messy items. The only drawback is that TSA finds this solution very suspicious and goes through all my underwear every single time. :-D

I generally stay in apartments, so I really don’t feel I need most hotel amenities. If I did, I’d be staying in hotels! I don’t need daily cleaning, lots of lobby space, or a bathtub. In a luxury hotel a big fancy bath tub is nice, but I don’t generally take baths in hotels. When my kids were little, though, I did use the tub for them so hotels wanting the family market will probably need to be careful on the tub issue.

My big issue with hotels is the coffe/fridge concern. I am an early riser, often before any hotel breakfast opens, and I would like coffee in my room. I wil go to the lobby for 24 hour coffee if necessary, but in room is better. So a passable coffee maker in the room is important, and I like coffee with a bit of milk or cream, no sugar. Espresso is also fine, hotels with Nespresso pods are welcome! I’ll take the provided powder creamer but I’d rather have milk, which I’m happy to buy myself and store in the fridge.
Which brings us to the fridge issue. My biggest priority is a fridge in my room. For the aforementioned milk, but also for keeping water bottles cold, for a quick snack, or breakfast of yogurt or cheese/sliced meat, since I’m often up before the hotel breakfast.