Hotel Rooftop Pools: Design Considerations

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Best Western Is Testing Voice-Activated Rooms

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What do hotels do with the half-used soaps, shower gels and shampoos left behind in rooms after guests check out?

Toss them. It's wasteful and environmentally unsound, and we really do need to come up with a better solution than that; but without such a solution in place, that's about the limit of the options we have.
Originally appeared on Quora

How much can it cost to make a hotel that is adapted for people with disabilities, or to convert a hotel to suit people with disabilities (estimation)?

For a newly-built class A select service property, the going rate is about $10 million, give or take.

How can I give you a figure off the top of my head like that? It's because every new hotel is required to fully comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. There are very few people who are able to travel at all, who cannot be accommodated, somehow, in any hotel built to current codes. And if one of those people calls ahead, we'll think of something.

Is every room in a hotel built to current codes fully accessible to people with disabilities? No. There's just not the demand. You would incur vastly increased construction and furnishings costs per room if you made every room in the hotel fully accessible, and for most people who show up, a standard hotel room is quite adequate.

Can you take a Gideon Bible from a hotel room?

Can you take a Gideon Bible from a hotel room? by John Geare 

How often are items purchased from hotel minibars?

We don't mess with them. All of the things that Stacy Jean noted in her answer to the question (Stacy Jean's answer ), we noticed years and years ago.

Don't assume that everything that shows up in a hotel is a 'profit center' simply because it comes at a price. Sometimes, it's simply there for guest convenience. (Indeed, many people miss many of the things that, over the years, have been eliminated because it neither can be provided at a good enough profit for the hotel to be much of a 'profit center', nor can the hotel give it out as a free amenity; and in either case, can be provided at the cost of more bother than it's worth. See Michael Forrest Jones' answer to What features of restaurants and hotels have almost completely vanished? .)

Long-distance telephone is one modern-day example: the 'profit' from it is negligible, unless you price it so high that the guest feels like she's been gouged when the call shows up on her bill. Indeed, even Red Roof Inns offer it as a free amenity. (And Red Roof is an economy chain: one of the things that go with successfully running an economy property is aggressively watching the bottom line - and watching it with the free amenities, especially those that you can't limit a guest's use of.)

Are hotel reviews more relevant in the buying process than the categorization by hotel stars?

Think of it as the difference between the Emmys and the People's Choice Awards.

The 'stars' are ratings based upon the hotel's service and amenity level - you have to have a free continental breakfast to get this many stars, you have to have a restaurant and lounge to get that many stars, you have to have room service to get one more. Michelin, AAA, and anyone else who awards 'stars' each has their own criteria re how many 'stars' to award for which set of amenities: they're their stars to give, and they make the rules and give them out as they please (Hotel rating ). If I want to develop a new 'four-star hotel', I'm going to make sure I plan ahead for my new hotel to have everything on those lists of requirements for a four-star rating.

The reviews by guests on TripAdvisor are submitted by guests (hopefully real guests, not sales staff - Michael Forrest Jones' answer to What's the best site for getting hotel reviews? ), and based on their experience staying at the hotel.

Why don't hotel rooms have liquid soap dispensers?

Like this?

It's too high-tech for a hotel. Seriously. 

And it's unsanitary. 

(Are you already starting to not believe a word of this one? . . .)

This past week I've been letting daylight in upon magic and holding us up for ridicule as an industry disinclined to have our technology keep up with the times and modern needs (Michael Forrest Jones' answer to Why does it take so long to check in at hotels? ), but oddly enough, this really is too high tech for a hotel. Before you start laughing . . . well, here's why: 

Are hotel reviews more relevant in the buying process than the categorization by hotel stars?

Think of it as the difference between the Emmys and the People's Choice Awards.

The 'stars' are ratings based upon the hotel's service and amenity level - you have to have a free continental breakfast to get this many stars, you have to have a restaurant and lounge to get that many stars, you have to have room service to get one more. Michelin, AAA, and anyone else who awards 'stars' each has their own criteria re how many 'stars' to award for which set of amenities: they're their stars to give, and they make the rules and give them out as they please (Hotel rating ). If I want to develop a new 'four-star hotel', I'm going to make sure I plan ahead for my new hotel to have everything on those lists of requirements for a four-star rating.

The reviews by guests on TripAdvisor are submitted by guests (hopefully real guests, not sales staff - Michael Forrest Jones' answer to What's the best site for getting hotel reviews? ), and based on their experience staying at the hotel.



One surprising example of divergence that we noted in developing our new economy brand (Calico Inns - Beechmont Hotels Corporation ): Red Roof Inn is an existing 'economy' brand. The last one at which I stayed, in Bethlehem, Pa., was a 'two-star' hotel - but it had a TripAdvisor bubble score of 4.0 out of 5.0. (Okay, I helped - Every town needs a 'good, $65.00 motel' . . . - but it still had four bubbles before I posted my own review. If anything, I penalized them: I gave them fives in every relevant category, but took one away on the final score for going "100% non-smoking" and not having a smoking room for me on my last trip.) 

After checking out of a good hotel, what services is it reasonable to expect to use for the remainder of that day? (I checked out of the Park Hyatt today at noon, left my bags and when I retuned to collect them I sat in a reception lounge reading for a bit and I charged my phone. I was told that as I was no longer a guest I shouldn't stay long! Where would be a good place to draw the line as a recent guest and what you can and can't do.)

I can't give you a good answer (at least not in terms of present-day applicability) to that question because frankly, most hotels do not have a policy on that, nor have they ever considered one.  

Someone on the hotel staff might okay it, as a personal accommodation in the spirit of hospitality (which most hotels encourage among their staff - and I will concede based on what you tell me that the staff at the Park Hyatt that you describe was being a bit harsh). But - as you yourself noticed -  that leaves you at the mercy (or whim) of the hotel staff; which can vary not only from hotel to hotel, but between individual managers and staff members within the same hotel.  



A hotel needs to have a policy in place for it, and frankly, most don't. (Unapologetic spam piece: now that I've seen your question, we will.) 

Why is paid internet access in hotels so shoddy?

Free internet access in a hotel is often shoddy.  Internet access is nearly always outsourced, and in many hotels, outsourced as on the cheap as possible.

And it's often outsourced to someone whose ability and enthusiasm for marketing exceeds their ability and enthusiasm for delivering a decent product that works, providing adequate bandwidth to keep up with demand, etc. 



For example, Ethostream, Choice Hotels' provider for internet, is a disease. Bandwidth is kind of thin (you get what you pay for), and every time you log in, you get that 'terms of service' screen which, once you approve the TOS, only gives you 24 hours of use before it cuts you off unexpectedly, and you have to go approve the TOS again (often having to close your browser and reopen it in the process). The TOS screen redirects you to the hotel's webpage - and provides its own address bar (like anyone's going to use that rather than the one on their own browser): apparently, this provider has a captive audience and plans to milk it for all it's worth, to the extent that it can. There's also a countdown clock on that address bar telling you how much time you have left, but most people are not going to use that address bar or even leave that screen open. And at least three or four times a week in some hotels, the switchboard lights up like a Christmas tree, with unhappy guests complaining that there's no internet, and the clerk usually has to leave the desk on autopilot (often at an inopportune time) and go reset the router.

I want to start a resort, how should I get started?

Why would anyone want to come there?

I'm not being a smart a*s: with a resort, that is the first question you have to ask, and its going to come up again and again. (Fortunately, you seem to already have some idea.)



With any hotel project, you locate your hotel near as many demand generators (office parks, interstate highway offramps, theme parks and other tourist attractions, a big regional mall, an airport if you can swing it, etc.), so you still ask that question first.

With a resort, it's all the more important. You're relying upon your location and property itself to be the demand generator (with many resorts, the only demand generator you'll have). Much of the reason people check into your facility is for the unique experience of staying at your facility, itself. So you have to ask that question first, and you have to keep asking it over and again as you're putting it together.

So...

What is my best bet to find nice hotel rooms, as opposed to "simply average" hotel rooms?

Check TripAdvisor. People on TripAdvisor are generally pretty candid about what they think of a hotel and its rooms. And while in the past, it has been criticized for giving inadequate protections to hotels from malicious reviews (by employees of competitors, or people who never stayed at a certain hotel), TripAdvisor now has enough of a critical mass of users, and generally enough safeguards in place against fraud and blackmail, that nowadays, it can be counted upon for a pretty fair description.



I hope you don't find this answer disappointing, that you weren't counting on, say, some inside information that only people in the industry have access to to make such determinations. 

But really - we use TripAdvisor, too (often to 'spy' on each other, see what our competitors have that we need to get, what they are doing that we need to be doing) . . . It also tells us, out of all the stuff we try, what guests actually respond to.

What is the one feature, outside basic necessities like running water, that every hotel room should have?

A bed, some clean bedding, four walls, a floor, a roof, a clean bath, and a locking door. 

And then, the question becomes, do you want to be able to rent the darn thing to human beings that you wouldn't mind having as guests? Because that's what it comes down to: each person measures their own 'need'. Define essential. Whatever item you name, you might feel very uncomfortable without it, even though not that many people feel the need for it. Or you could do without it just fine, but the guy next door will suffer through his stay for lack of it. (Do you actually watch all the channels you have on your cable TV? Yet, even if one of the 'amazing TV offers' channels were eliminated, someone would complain to the cable company.)



We once tried to come up with a hotel with bare-bones amenities, where we could rent the rooms cheap cheap. (Twitter was a new thing, then, and people seemed to like the little blue bird, so inspired by that, and the 'cheap cheap' description, we even came up with a brand for it: 'Bluebird Hotel'.) 

I mean, we were downright shameless and aggressive about it, looking for every way in the book plus a few no book would dare print, to cut costs and make it possible to rent the rooms for forty bucks a night or under.

Why are there phones in the bathrooms of some hotel rooms?

Because of some starry-eyed dreamer's silly idea of "what guests expect". 

Why doesn't every hotel have a phone in the bath? We (at the mid-market and economy tier, anyway) have never had anyone ask for one nor complain because they didn't have one. 

Maybe our hotels aren't as "nice", but we deal with a nicer class of people, so it all evens out.



Not to sound crude, but frankly, the utility value of such an amenity is something I don't regard as particularly healthy or intelligent. The scary part is that every such phone I've seen is a traditionally-styled phone with a handheld receiver. It's never a speakerphone that you can use while shaving or taking a shower (or, if a woman, applying makeup). That would seem to somewhat limit its potential use in a bath - and (other  than, just maybe, if several people are in a room and one of them needs  a place to talk on the phone privately, out of earshot of the others), I just don't find the one likely remaining use for it particularly appetizing (see Is it impolite to talk to somebody on the phone while defecating? ).

Why do expensive hotels nickel and dime you?

Because they can. And in the end, nobody really cares.

(You and I don't count. While I was writing this one up, I recalled that a quarter century ago, they came up with a hotel brand that was all but made for people like you and I who go nuts with all the 'extra' charges, having to deal with people who are in the 'fee collection' business; and went overboard with my weakness for storytelling . . . If it's any consolation, I did come up with an idea for a new venture.)

There are several reasons why.

• A few years back when I was on a trip to my mother's home, my mom, who developed a liking for plush, late-model American-made luxury cars as she reached a point in life where she could afford them if she bought them slightly used, was shopping for a Cadillac or a Lincoln for herself on Cars.com, but - ever my frugal mom -  going nuts because she couldn't find a model that uses regular gas. All Cadillac and Lincoln models, it appears, use premium. Every time she'd find another car on Cars.com and Edmunds that she liked, it would be the same thing: she'd look up the model and find she'd have to buy premium gas for it. She was starting to drive me and my stepfather a little nuts with it, too. I told her, Mom, a guy goes out and spends fifty to seventy-five grand to buy a brand new Caddy, he's not going to be the type to complain about having to pay an extra thirty cents a gallon on gas at three dollars and something per gallon. If he were, he'd do like I do, get a Honda, VW or Toyota for half as much that works just as well and burns regular. So, they don't bother to design them to burn regular gas. But for the last few months, the extra cost, high-test gas has been my problem. The last two years have not been my mother's best: she has been diagnosed with cancer and isn't going to be with us much longer. She has done some estate planning, cashed some insurance policies; and more recently divided up some money and property among my brother, sister and myself. In the process of getting herself down to one vehicle, she gave me one of her Cadillacs. I like Cadillacs and Town Cars but I don't have a particular preference for them like she did for the last fifteen years: quite frankly, the extra forty cents a gallon for premium gas is one of the reasons why. But I like having my mom's Caddy and am glad she thought of me. It happened just as I needed to replace a vehicle; but rather than buy one, I now have something that belonged to my mom that I should get a few more years out of after she's gone. That means more to me than the brand. So, I make my peace with the high-test gas: it's part of the price of having that car. (Late note, March 30, 2014  ) It works the same way for hotels, if you'd rather stay at a Ritz-Carlton or St. Regis rather than a Hampton Inn or a Courtyard. If you want the product, and don't care if it's a little more pricy, then you're not as likely to notice, or complain about, the extras that come with it but are priced separately. Those are part of the price.

Why does the housekeeping staff never put away the in-room ironing board and iron in US hotels?

I've never noticed this to be a problem.



The key here would be communication. I have no doubt that the room attendant would put it away if she were clear that that's what the guest wants. If she doesn't, it's probably because she thinks that a guest staying over wants it left be.

Originally appeared on Quora.

What does it take to run a successful hotel?

I could ask, 'define success'. Are you running a Motel 6 on an I-80 offramp in Podunk, Kansas; or are you going to go all out with mega-luxury, rooms you can rent for $800 to $3000 per night, lots of meeting and banquet space, and a restaurant that people will fly in for; and give the St. Regis [http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel...] a run for it? It makes a difference. Usually. For this answer, I'll try to not let it.

Like my answer to What does it take to start a hotel?, this is one of those open-ended questions that I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole, but for the fact that someone of the caliber of David S. Rose was doing the asking (which could work into a great leap forward for my company if he should ever decide to stray outside tech ventures and into more real estate, "Main Street" businesses, and bricks and mortar-related stuff, and he likes my answers on the subject); because no answer anyone could give would come close to adequate.

What measures do hotels take to prevent non-guests from using the parking lot and airport shuttles?

We don’t try very hard.

(But then again, we don’t run an airport hotel that offers a park-and-fly package, so this question may describe a problem that we don’t need much of a plan to deal with . . .)

The shuttle doesn’t roll unless a registered guest, or someone holding a confirmed reservation, requests it, so never a problem there.