Hotel room won’t be serviced…

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I’ve booked a short stay away next week for DH’s birthday. Beautiful country area that we have visited many times before and we have stayed at this hotel before but it changed hands a little while ago.
I’ve just received a confirmation of booking email:

ROOM KEYS and SERVICING

A member of staff will be here to check you in from 3.30pm to 11pm. Your key will be placed in your room on arrival and you should keep it with you until your departure, the key will get you through the front door and into your room whilst the hotel is closed.
*please note the hotel will be closed during the day after breakfast and re-open at 3.30pm. We close at 11pm each night. Take your key with you during your stay as it will give you access to the front door and your room.

The rooms will NOT be serviced during your stay unless you are staying for 5 nights or more, in which case we will offer to service the room halfway through your stay. If you require a top up or replacement of any items, ie towels, tea, coffee, etc inform a member of staff at breakfast and they will be left outside your room.

It sounds like they are on the bones of economising on staff costs. The room won’t be serviced - so not even making the bed and tidying the bathroom then. And no one around all day - it’s reminiscent of those old fashioned B&Bs where you were kicked out after breakfast and not allowed back until the evening.

It’s not that we leave things in a terrible mess but one of the joys of a hotel stay is coming back to a nice tidy room and bathroom.

I’m not sharing the email with DH - he’ll go off the idea of staying there and be on the look out for things to moan about from the minute we arrive and I don’t want to cancel and try to find something else. It’s a lovely location and we have plans for the walks we will be doing each day.

Is this the way the hospitality industry is going now?

I am a bit torn about this one. I don't really need my bed made or to have clean towels every day. I would like teas/coffees replenished and most particularly toilet rolls. I have found that hotels can be rather stingy. Somehow I don't care for the idea of having to go and ask a receptionist for toilet rolls. Also I would like my bins emptied.

On the other hand we both have bowel related issues which means being able to come back to our room at any time to use the bathroom and not have to worry that it will be in the middle of being serviced is actually quite useful.

I think the best compromise would be for the hotel to say that if you don't need or want your room serviced then leave the Do Not Disturb sign on your door and then the room won't be serviced that day.

Ah, I thought that would probably be the case re staffing, from the way you described the area.

Agree your best bet is to take it for what it is and look elsewhere for the food. And the pub with rooms vibe is probably more viable for the business, given the constraints of 2025. Enjoy the trip!

Yes, ime getting staff - and them actually being willing to work what's needed is part of the issue, as well as the way they're viewed generally by society.
There was a thread on here not so long ago about a teen working in hospitality and the parents wanted them to go to a family event but they couldn't get the time off work, Easter weekend if I remember correctly. The general feeling was the job didn't matter and they should either quit, phone in sick or say they're not available and that's that and see what happened.

Yet people complain when things like this happen and service is reduced because there's not enough available people to do the work.

So it's important when we're recieving the service, but not important when it's us/our loved ones delivering it and that causes inconvenience.

Unfortunately there's not an endless supply of people wanting to pick up wet towels and change loo roll for minimum wage, increasing what they're paid to attract people paid means increasing the price to the user of the service which people huff & puff about.

Service jobs have been devalued and this is the result.

Unfortunately in the current climate if you want things like this, you're going to be paying for them. If you want to check in early or check out later and use the facilities for longer, you need to pay for that. If you want to have your wet towels picked up off the bed and not have the horror of having to speak to someone and ask for something, you're going to have to pay for it. None of these things are free to provide, and margins are very tight as it is in hospitality, giving away stuff that costs money to deliver is just a way to destroy the business, which means less choice available, which people will also complain about.

People seem to despise the hospitality industry as much as they use it, like they resent wanting to use it for some reason.

I worked in housekeeping for the last 2 summers. It suited me to have a zero hours contract - but it’s not easy to recruit people and they did struggle, even though they paid above NMW.

with fluctuations of business needs it’s up and down how much work there is and a bedroom takes 15/30 minutes for a pull up and 25/30 for a strip- depending which hotel you’re working in the timings are set

i can understand the cutting back on pulls as it decreases the work, and keeps the cost down- thus the hotel is cheaper than the Airbnb

I would still go but I do like staying at hotels and b and bs that make up the bed and tidy up a bit. May as well go self catering for less money

I wouldn’t go. The best thing about a holiday is having the room serviced and having somewhere lovely and fresh and clean to relax in

It's annoying. With such little service why wouldn't you just stay in an Airbnb and have your own kitchen?

The only reason to choose a hotel over an Airbnb is that sense of indulgence/permafreshness

Me too.

I would cancel the stay. They aren't even bothering to offer the service you'd expect in a hotel. It's a B& B.

From the sound of it it seems they mean there won’t be a staffed reception, or room service meals or snacks available. I think OP will have a front door key so they will have access to the room, just no services, a bit like being at home , but without a kitchen!

TBF those posters weren't wrong, and a teen missing out on an important family event to work in a weekend job wouldn't change any of the structural factors that created this situation.

Agree with everything else you've written though. This is the labour market we're in, and people can either engage with that or not use the service. There isn't a reset to the 2010s option available. Which in fairness OP has accepted.

I notice people are talking about Air B and B, but they're not doing particularly well either. They're also very much affected by the issues you mention, as well as having a few of their own on top.

That's fair enough. I'm someone who usually travels for an extended period of time, so, for me, it's nice to be able to have space, be able to do my laundry, and generally feel like I'm in more of a home than a prison cell sized room 😀I also don't enjoy eating out much (certainly not every day!), so I really REALLY appreciate having a kitchen.

TBF those posters weren't wrong, and a teen missing out on an important family event to work in a weekend job wouldn't change any of the structural factors that created this situation

It speaks to the attitude that people demand these services are provided when they want them, but even when they or a family member actually take a job where the whole idea is to work when others are traditionally off, it's not important enough to actually do it when it's needed, but then very important when the concequences of that affect them negatively from the other side - I agree it's not the main or only factor, but working in the industry it definitely is one.
Parents saying to their teens or even young adults in their 20's adults managers that they shouldn't be expected to work weekends , bank holidays, Easter, Christmas etc because they're missing time with family/friends and events - yet would be the first to complain at poor service if they received it from a place short staffed because the teens/young adults all can't work because they're attending family events.

Its wanted all ways, fully expect the service to be provided - as long as it's by someone else and doesn't impact us (genetic us).

It's the wider structural factors that are important here, though. People telling teens they ought to sacrifice a big family event for a job that all parties know is poorly paid, won't come with full employment rights since the teen isn't likely to have been there 2 years and can easily be replaced by another job whenever the teen wants because of the state of the sector wouldn't change any of that.

What would change it is if the roles paid more, and were career jobs. But that would require people paying enough to get the kind of service they want, which as you point out, they clearly don't want to do.

Pretending to teenagers that the jobs are more important than their personal life, but not so important that they come with better pay, employment rights or career progression, isn't going to fool them. They're young, not stupid. This isn't new, either. My dad was in hospitality management in the late 90s and early 00s, around the time I was a teen, and this was happening then. There was a big argument with the higher ups about rostering the young staff for Millennium NYE and he pointed out that they were clearly not going to turn up (place never opened in the end, as it turned out).

Basically, I agree with you that people can be hypocrites who want it both ways. But not that there's a way round this by pretending to teenagers that they have to make sacrifices when they clearly don't.

Quite often there’s nowhere to hang them. Not to get them dry enough to use again. Many hotels use air-con style for heating/cooling so the towels never dry properly as there’s no radiator or heated hanging space.

I have never been to a hotel that has not had at least enough hooks in the bathroom plus a heated towel rail. If they aren't getting dry leave them on the floor/in the bath as instructed to be exchanged but just leaving them on the bed is disrespectful (and makes the bed damp). But people leave hotel rooms in far worse states than that I'm sure.

I have certainly been in hotel rooms that don’t have space to hang towels out, but I would probably drape over chair or desk rather than bed

I would be fine with that tbh. The last small hotel I used was like that but they were super attentive when I needed anything. Had a bell which would summon the owner.

No that’s a fair point. I hadn’t considered that properly, so I apologise. I suppose I am coming at it more from a stance that I’d prefer not to have the intrusion during a short stay and also that for me at least it’s fairly unnecessary.

To clarify, I’d never leave them on the bed! However, I’ve never stayed anywhere that would dry 4 towels (1 for my shower, 1 for my hair, 1 for DH shower and 1 for hands) adequately for them to be used again. Even the ones that have heated towel rails as the towels are usually thick and have to be folded.

Well, with handtowels we do as we do at home and just keep it in the holder where they usually dry ok, they are used less than at home because we’re out all day. Then one bath towel each which go on the towel rail or hooks.

Well exactly, no one is fooled by it, not even old timers like me!
Like you say there's a hypocritical attitude towards it, I demand this service, I don't think I should pay more than what I want to, if anything for it, and I demand there's plenty of people ready and willing to deliver it, as long as it's not me or my loved ones. Someone else can do it.

It might not be new, but I valued my job as a teen and in my early 20's and realised refusing to work the busiest times would mean I wouldn't keep it very long.

Society has devalued these roles and the whole industry and this is the very predictable result. The same could be said for the care industry and retail too I would think. All the financial constraints on hospitality have just compounded the issues that were already there and drawn them into focus because the industry has needed to change for a long time - which means customers need to change too, however that change is now being forced through necessity for businesses to stay afloat and actually be there to be used - but people don't want to see the bigger picture to what's brought us here.

I cleaned hotel rooms many years ago and was gobsmacked at just how much of a mess some people can make in 1 or 2 nights. Clothes all over the floor, wet towels everywhere, food wrappers on the desk and floor (not sure what they thought the bins were for).

Some people (far too many) are just filthy pigs who expect others to clean up after them

I won a stay at a posh hotel (4days) I took my pensioner mum. The first morning at 7am the maid (that’s what she called herself) gave two loud knocks on the door and let herself in. I was in the bathroom and mum was in bed. Mum said we wouldn’t be getting up just yet. The maid collected used cups and a couple of tea plates and left. About an hour later mum couldn’t find her false teeth. It turned out the maid had thought they were rubbish and must have put them in her litter sack. We told the front desk and they checked all the sacks and found them. They then got the chef to sterilise them for her. It was like something out of an old comedy film.

That is something to remember forever :-).