Hotel room won’t be serviced…

[ShamedBySiri]

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?

OMG that is brilliant. The chef boiled them?
Did he add flavouring?
Imagine if a junior chef had inadvertently added them to the chicken risotto 😱😂🤦‍♀️

Depends how much you are paying.
id be more annoyed that I had to be out after breakfast.
I do like my room serviced. It’s a treat.

I don't know how businesses come to the conclusion that they can keep putting up their prices while continually offering their customers worse goods or services for more money. Yet many of them do, it's just a standard business model these days.

Looking at the salaries of CEOs of large hotel chains and other industries there is definitely profiteering somewhere along the line as their rise is exponential almost regardless of how the business is doing.

Much as I agree that CEO salaries are not well linked to CEO performance, they have very little impact on the cost of providing one night in a hotel room. The cost of one night in a room is impacted much more by increases in minimum wage. The hospitality industry has always relied on a lot of low waged staff, especially at the lower end. So increases in minimum wage have a greater impact than they do on many industries. Minimum wage is up by 10% over inflation since 2020 but the median salary is 5% below inflation for the same time period. So things are more expense and we have less spare cash, making them seem even more expensive!

Operators must be aware they can't keep raising prices and lowering standards without losing customers. But they also can't just swallow the costs indefinitely, especially on the heels of COVID. They've been going out of business at a high rate.

There's also the issue of getting those low paid staff in the first place. It's true that the answer may well be that these businesses in current model aren't actually viable, that people will ultimately prefer to go without. But that doesn't mean an alternative exists.

High end hotels, who tend to pay staff above minimum wage and provide better conditions, have been doing relatively well. But the market is, obviously, smaller than the market of everyone-who'd-like-to-stay-in-a-hotel.

I was at a five star luxe in West Country pre Covid.

They’d be recently taken over & were now eco friendly & proud. So effectively no clean towels for 3 days, no refills of milk, etc & if needed.

They guilted you into being wasteful if asked otherwise, purely £ saving.

Just as with manufacturers of high end designer clothes, high end hotels don’t necessarily pay staff more.

Of course there's big companies with CEOs on big salaries, after all we worship those with the big salaries as 'hard workers who have sacrificed to get where they are' as a society don't we?

But big CEO salaries aren't the only cause of the prices, it's because the price of all the elements if you like, to provide that service have risen.
Who should be covering that increase? Why shouldn't the people using the service cover it? Who do you expect to cover it? The prices haven't risen on a whim, they've risen because the cost to supply has risen.
And in this case it's a small independent that's being discussed from the OP. Should the owner subsidise your break to their detriment? The staff? Who do you expect to cover the shortfall between what you think it's worth and what it actually costs? And why do you think it shouldn't be the person using the service?

This seems standard.

Practically I can't see how CEO salaries can make much difference. There are many millions of hotel stays per year in the UK. Even if we somehow capped salaries in the sector at 100k or whatever, the amount saved spread across all those stays wouldn't make a dent in people's bills.

The cause of increased prices is Brexit! Some people reading this voted for it.

We are here. The room and bathroom are clean and functional. I sensibly brought all toiletries though there is the tiniest guest soap you ever saw. And a couple of tiny tubes of bath gel and shampoo.
The towels are a bit small and thin so I will request new towels each day as they get quite wet with one use.
Tea making and a couple of bottles of water provided, we brought some of our own as well.
DH was happy with his fish and chips. Even though I had low expectations of the food I managed to choose unwisely and got boil in the bag but it was OK BITB.

The bed is huge and very comfortable.

Just as well no maids will be coming in - there was an annoying intrusive green light signposting the door incase we couldn’t find it in the event of a fire. DH solved the problem by fitting a pair of his black boxers over it. 😂

The sun is shining, breakfast and a long hike on the moor await.

It’s good value for a modest price. 👌

OP, the “annoying green light” is there to meet fire regulations.

I am well aware of that @StarlightLadybut it was preventing me from going to sleep shining directly into my eyes.
🙄

Sounds alright! Enjoy your break.

We always ask not to be disturbed/have our room cleaned - I don't like someone in my room. But I can see if you enjoy that kind of thing you'd be a bit disappointed.

As a matter of interest, if as you say -

"It’s good value for a modest price. 👌"

Would you have paid more when booking if the room servicing each day were included and there was someone on site all day if you wanted to leave your bags on your arrival/departure or in case you wanted something?

I mean if the price were higher and you still assumed as you did that room servicing were included and the place was staffed through the day? (Which of course you later found out isn't the case).

On receptions being open, we often use 2 star family run hotels in French cities as they are generally central and good value for what we want (somewhere modest to stay that is in walking distance of the city). It is common fot reception to only be open in the morning and evening. It is easily handled by a pin code on the main door of the hotel and you accept that you may not be able to check in at lunch time or after hours. More modern ones we have been to recently have a PIN code lock on the room doors that they email you on the day you check in.