Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Why do hotels have a check-in/check-out time? Could 24 hours (i.e anytime) check-in checkout be a differentiator?

If we have a room ready for you, we'll generally let you check in prior to three. Usually if we don't, it's not because we're being mean, it's because logistics can be a problem (Michael Forrest Jones' answer to Arriving early to a hotel, I often hear "your room is not ready yet." Do hotels reserve you a particular room or do patrons simply have a spot in the hotel reserved for them?)

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Giving you a late check-out if you wish is frequently more tricky, but even that can be negotiated if you approach it in a considerate manner. (Michael Forrest Jones' answer to How lenient are hotels when it comes to checking out late? |Michael Forrest Jones' answer to How long after checkout time can I leave my hotel room without incurring fees or hassle? )  Here again, we're not trying to be difficult, but we have logistics issues around that. 

One of my first hotels after making the transition from hourly employee to management was a too-large hotel (Michael Forrest Jones' answer to What do hotels do with unused guest rooms?) in not an altogether great highway location, with not that many demand generators nearby -- but among the demand generators we did have was a couple of truck terminals. So I worked it out with one of those to allow the drivers to rent the room in 24-hour blocks: if the driver checked out after the housekeepers went home, we'd just 'roll' the room and let them clean it the next day. 

But we had the extra rooms and a vacancy problem, and no one else was going to rent them anyway, so we could afford to do that -- and we needed the business. It was a little extra recordkeeping for the clerks to stay on top of, but not that many hotels have an incentive to take that on. Most hotels, like it or not, have to stay in sync with the general human biological clock.

Originally appeared on Quora

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