Enjoy your stay – make your own bed

For years now hotels have been keen to dial back on cleaning services. We’ve all seen the ‘green card’ asking us to save the planet and skip having our bedding and towels replaced.

According to Reuters, Starwood are now actively offering a choice of full housekeeping services or alternatively daily incentives such as food and beverage vouchers or additional Starwood frequent traveller programme points. Operators such as Malaysia based Tune Hotels have taken housekeeping to another level where guests who want towels and soap will need to pay for them. Maybe Ryanair started a trend with their plans to charge people one pound if they want to use the toilet in flight?!

The point is that even in the business sectors so called budget, pod or capsule hotels are becoming ever popular. For those of us for whom luxury is no longer quite as affordable we need to get practising our ‘hospital corner’ bed making skills. The budget hotel sector may be continuing to grow and possibly during the recent recession business travellers expectations have been redefined, ensuring the long term viability of the sector. But it’s all about degree. Does the business traveller (or any other traveller come to that) really want to sleep in a capsule and how will the middle market hotels respond to the threat via the introduction of innovative new initiatives?

LAW Creative is a specialist hotel and leisure marketing agency. To discuss your marketing needs and aspirations please contact Keith Sammels at keith.sammels@lawcreative.co.uk