Is it ethical to refuse housekeeping at a hotel?
October 28, 2018 7:41 PM Subscribe
I've found that hotels are offering incentives if one declines housekeeping during their stay. What are the ramifications of doing this?
I've traveled twice in the last 2 months. One time I stayed at a large hotel chain, where I was offered points on my rewards account for each day I refused housekeeping services. The other time I stayed at a vacation resort, where I was offered an electronic gift card with $10 per full day of my stay. There is always the option of refusing it day by day by leaving the privacy flag up all of the time, but being asked upfront to give it up is interesting.
I'm a pretty tidy person in hotels. I reuse the towels, I don't order room service. Housekeeping is lovely to have, but I'm ambivalent about it. On one hand, my bed is made and the floor is vacuumed daily, which is better service than I provide for myself in my own home. On the other hand, I worry about returning to my room during a break before it's done, and then having to leave again, so it's nice to not have that sitting in my head.
What are the ethical ramifications of accepting a hotel's incentive to refuse housekeeping? Do the housekeepers get their hours cut or would they be pleased there is less mess to clean? There would be missing tips, but one could tip heavily on the last day to mitigate that.
If you're in the hospitality field, what's in it for the hotel? If you travel, have you encountered this? I'd like this not to turn into a 'capitalism sucks!' discussion, please.
I've traveled twice in the last 2 months. One time I stayed at a large hotel chain, where I was offered points on my rewards account for each day I refused housekeeping services. The other time I stayed at a vacation resort, where I was offered an electronic gift card with $10 per full day of my stay. There is always the option of refusing it day by day by leaving the privacy flag up all of the time, but being asked upfront to give it up is interesting.
I'm a pretty tidy person in hotels. I reuse the towels, I don't order room service. Housekeeping is lovely to have, but I'm ambivalent about it. On one hand, my bed is made and the floor is vacuumed daily, which is better service than I provide for myself in my own home. On the other hand, I worry about returning to my room during a break before it's done, and then having to leave again, so it's nice to not have that sitting in my head.
What are the ethical ramifications of accepting a hotel's incentive to refuse housekeeping? Do the housekeepers get their hours cut or would they be pleased there is less mess to clean? There would be missing tips, but one could tip heavily on the last day to mitigate that.
If you're in the hospitality field, what's in it for the hotel? If you travel, have you encountered this? I'd like this not to turn into a 'capitalism sucks!' discussion, please.
Best answer: To be very clear, hotels don't provide these incentives in order to reduce environmental waste, they do so in order to reduce their housekeeping costs. To be even more clear, that means reducing hours for housekeeping and/or eliminating housekeeping positions. The housekeepers aren't leaving early, they are simply being told not to come to work because their services are no longer required. This doesn't bother me, but I suspect it bothers you. If so, consider that the value of the incentives to you has to be less than the cost of the housekeeping (otherwise, the hotel wouldn't bother). Since you seem to be prioritizing housekeeper compensation, consider rejecting the incentives because the housekeeper will get more value out of their job than you would out of the incentive.
posted by saeculorum at 8:07 PM on October 28, 2018 [49 favorites]
posted by saeculorum at 8:07 PM on October 28, 2018 [49 favorites]
Best answer: I worked in housekeeping for a private small-ish guest ranch. Knowing ahead of time who needed service helped with scheduling and planning our day.
posted by Sassyfras at 8:08 PM on October 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by Sassyfras at 8:08 PM on October 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
Imagine if everyone did it. If everyone did it, there would be fewer housekeeping jobs. If there were fewer housekeeping jobs, some people who would otherwise work in hotels doing housekeeping would do something else instead. So it depends on how you feel about that.
posted by aniola at 8:09 PM on October 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by aniola at 8:09 PM on October 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
Best answer: kimberussell: " Do the housekeepers get their hours cut"
Yes, especially in the case where housekeeping is working piece work.
posted by Mitheral at 8:35 PM on October 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
Yes, especially in the case where housekeeping is working piece work.
posted by Mitheral at 8:35 PM on October 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
Best answer: Some links about the way these programs work to cut paychecks (while pretending the motivation is to save the earth)....
https://www.unitehere1.org/2014/12/local-1s-starwood-housekeepers-fight-fake-green-program/
https://www.uniteherelocal40.org/2017/10/workers-protest-westin-bayshores-green-program-which-hurts-hotel-housekeepers/
posted by cushie at 8:48 PM on October 28, 2018 [10 favorites]
https://www.unitehere1.org/2014/12/local-1s-starwood-housekeepers-fight-fake-green-program/
https://www.uniteherelocal40.org/2017/10/workers-protest-westin-bayshores-green-program-which-hurts-hotel-housekeepers/
posted by cushie at 8:48 PM on October 28, 2018 [10 favorites]
Best answer: If you do refuse for points, please leave an extra big tip for the staff that does eventually clean your room. I generally leave my privacy placard up, but don't officially refuse for housekeeper job security reasons. I also always leave a generous tip in my room.
posted by quince at 9:19 PM on October 28, 2018 [13 favorites]
posted by quince at 9:19 PM on October 28, 2018 [13 favorites]
To be very clear, hotels don't provide these incentives in order to reduce environmental waste, they do so in order to reduce their housekeeping costs.While this very well might be true about hotels' primary motivation, there is a genuine environmental benefit to declining housekeeping. This NYT article has a few statistics.
posted by kickingtheground at 9:26 PM on October 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I know a few people who worked or still work in house keeping. They are assigned eg 25 rooms for 8 hours (no joke, do the Math, cant even have a bathroom break).
If you opt out they will simply be assigned to clean another room instead, eg covering for a sick colleague etc. if on contract.
If they are not on a contract, their hours get cut.
Personally I opt out daily.
posted by 15L06 at 12:15 AM on October 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
If you opt out they will simply be assigned to clean another room instead, eg covering for a sick colleague etc. if on contract.
If they are not on a contract, their hours get cut.
Personally I opt out daily.
posted by 15L06 at 12:15 AM on October 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
Best answer: To be very clear, hotels don't provide these incentives in order to reduce environmental waste, they do so in order to reduce their housekeeping costs. To be even more clear, that means reducing hours for housekeeping and/or eliminating housekeeping positions. The housekeepers aren't leaving early, they are simply being told not to come to work because their services are no longer required
That's true enough, but not the entirety of the issue since it really does depend a lot on circumstance. Hotels staff for expected occupancy, so in some instances where the expectation is exceeded during a given weekend, for example, then they may not have extra housekeepers to just bring in for a two day stretch, meaning vacated rooms have to be left uncleaned and unavailable for rental to put time into cleaning stayover rooms instead. In those instances it's concern over a loss of potential revenue for rooms unable to be rented as much as it is the hours for that brief time period. The hotel eventually will have to have those rooms cleaned of course, so at some point it does go back to an hours issue for housekeeping, but that can just mean moving the time period they are working rather than taking hours from them per se.
The underlying difficulty is that hotels have a break even revenue point for rooms to make a profit. With the popularity of Expedia and like bargain websites for booking, hotels are often facing tight margins on getting profit from rooms since part of the revenue is going to third party vendors instead of the hotel itself. If you book a room on Expedia for, say, 100 dollars the hotel may only get 70ish and the profit point for the room may be 50ish dollars. Add in any extras like free shuttle service and other incentives and the profit point can decline even more. Housekeeping hours do get cut when they aren't needed, but that's because it's one of the most elastic areas for saving money for a hotel. Most other staffing costs are roughly constant as are the expected amenities guests demand, which are increasingly expensive on their own. Cutting Housekeeping hours can help keep the hotel operational rather than just being a pure profit grab that only benefits the owner. (There are, of course, many variables to that in both assumptions and operations, the point is it isn't entirely a simple black and white issue.)
posted by gusottertrout at 1:02 AM on October 29, 2018 [4 favorites]
That's true enough, but not the entirety of the issue since it really does depend a lot on circumstance. Hotels staff for expected occupancy, so in some instances where the expectation is exceeded during a given weekend, for example, then they may not have extra housekeepers to just bring in for a two day stretch, meaning vacated rooms have to be left uncleaned and unavailable for rental to put time into cleaning stayover rooms instead. In those instances it's concern over a loss of potential revenue for rooms unable to be rented as much as it is the hours for that brief time period. The hotel eventually will have to have those rooms cleaned of course, so at some point it does go back to an hours issue for housekeeping, but that can just mean moving the time period they are working rather than taking hours from them per se.
The underlying difficulty is that hotels have a break even revenue point for rooms to make a profit. With the popularity of Expedia and like bargain websites for booking, hotels are often facing tight margins on getting profit from rooms since part of the revenue is going to third party vendors instead of the hotel itself. If you book a room on Expedia for, say, 100 dollars the hotel may only get 70ish and the profit point for the room may be 50ish dollars. Add in any extras like free shuttle service and other incentives and the profit point can decline even more. Housekeeping hours do get cut when they aren't needed, but that's because it's one of the most elastic areas for saving money for a hotel. Most other staffing costs are roughly constant as are the expected amenities guests demand, which are increasingly expensive on their own. Cutting Housekeeping hours can help keep the hotel operational rather than just being a pure profit grab that only benefits the owner. (There are, of course, many variables to that in both assumptions and operations, the point is it isn't entirely a simple black and white issue.)
posted by gusottertrout at 1:02 AM on October 29, 2018 [4 favorites]
Huh? I'm not guessing, I've worked in hotels for the better part of 30 years. They try to save costs by limiting the amount of laundry and room attendants as the one of the most efficient methods for doing that. The situation of each hotel and when one stays leads to variation in where those savings may go, but the basic premise is pretty much the same everywhere.
Points programs are incentives for future stays where the hotel itself is usually only paying part of the estimated total value of those points as the franchise benefits overall for frequent stays so they pick up part of the "cost". The gift card for a vacation resort is obviously seen as being cheaper and a "perk" for guests who don't need their linens changed everyday. That it does have an environmental benefit, depending I guess on how one uses the gift card, is a bonus. There's some reason to worry about declining housekeeping, as it may sometimes lead to hours getting cut for the housekeepers, but it is also often one of the few ways for the hotel to save money without more radically changing their services. I'd take the gift if the linen and cleaning isn't a big deal myself.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:47 AM on October 29, 2018 [4 favorites]
Points programs are incentives for future stays where the hotel itself is usually only paying part of the estimated total value of those points as the franchise benefits overall for frequent stays so they pick up part of the "cost". The gift card for a vacation resort is obviously seen as being cheaper and a "perk" for guests who don't need their linens changed everyday. That it does have an environmental benefit, depending I guess on how one uses the gift card, is a bonus. There's some reason to worry about declining housekeeping, as it may sometimes lead to hours getting cut for the housekeepers, but it is also often one of the few ways for the hotel to save money without more radically changing their services. I'd take the gift if the linen and cleaning isn't a big deal myself.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:47 AM on October 29, 2018 [4 favorites]
Best answer: Another factor: the local economy. Where I live the hotels can't hire enough housekeepers in part because it's seasonal work for many. When some guests refuse service, the day is less hectic for staff and the other rooms can be cleaned better. Here the housekeeping staff get giant bonuses at the end of the season to motivate them to stick around... and it still isn't enough.
posted by carmicha at 6:05 AM on October 29, 2018
posted by carmicha at 6:05 AM on October 29, 2018
Best answer: While this very well might be true about hotels' primary motivation, there is a genuine environmental benefit to declining housekeeping. This NYT article has a few statistics.
Those statistics don't seem to be clearly about cutting housekeeping. They just say "these hotels have cut their energy/water use" but they don't explicitly list what the comparison is or that the only change before and after the cut was the housekeeping opt-out. I'm guessing it also includes people opting out of the sheets/towels, which surely IS an environmental benefit. But I'm guessing the electricity used to vacuum the rug and the water used to wash the toilet/tub/sink is minimal. And making beds, emptying trash, tidying etc. which are the other things housekeeping does are not real energy users.
Personally what I do is make my own bed and try to keep tidy and I DO let housekeeping come. If I'm in the room and they ask me if I want this or that thing done (i.e. Do you want me to make the bed) I say no. In the case of the bed I make it clear that I did it so they wouldn't have to (so they know not to bother if they come in tomorrow when I'm not there and it's made again). My thinking is they still get "credit" for cleaning my room (i.e my room is one of their 25, or they get paid for having cleaned it if it's piecework), and they can get in and out relatively quickly which means if they need more time in another room they won't feel as rushed. And since my room did need cleaning today, officially, the hotel won't cut the number of cleaning staff or their hours.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:57 AM on October 29, 2018
Those statistics don't seem to be clearly about cutting housekeeping. They just say "these hotels have cut their energy/water use" but they don't explicitly list what the comparison is or that the only change before and after the cut was the housekeeping opt-out. I'm guessing it also includes people opting out of the sheets/towels, which surely IS an environmental benefit. But I'm guessing the electricity used to vacuum the rug and the water used to wash the toilet/tub/sink is minimal. And making beds, emptying trash, tidying etc. which are the other things housekeeping does are not real energy users.
Personally what I do is make my own bed and try to keep tidy and I DO let housekeeping come. If I'm in the room and they ask me if I want this or that thing done (i.e. Do you want me to make the bed) I say no. In the case of the bed I make it clear that I did it so they wouldn't have to (so they know not to bother if they come in tomorrow when I'm not there and it's made again). My thinking is they still get "credit" for cleaning my room (i.e my room is one of their 25, or they get paid for having cleaned it if it's piecework), and they can get in and out relatively quickly which means if they need more time in another room they won't feel as rushed. And since my room did need cleaning today, officially, the hotel won't cut the number of cleaning staff or their hours.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:57 AM on October 29, 2018
Best answer: The Marriott employees are specifically including this in their list of complaints against the chain. It hurts the employees as described above. You can reuse the linens and towels without completely opting out. Even if you opted out every single day you stayed the environmental impact would be extremely minimal.
posted by Missense Mutation at 11:29 AM on October 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Missense Mutation at 11:29 AM on October 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
Response by poster: Thanks all, for the different viewpoints. There is a lot to chew on. I didn't want to muddy the question by saying what I did, but I refused the points at hotel 1. However, at hotel 2 I accepted the gift card right away without thinking of the consequences. (I'm flawed.) Then the conscience started pinging while lying in my fluffy hotel bed (I'm flawed, but not altogether hopeless, I'd like to think) and I thought I'd check here before I checked out.
I did leave a big tip on checking out, and because I spent the gift card already (see above re: flawed) I donated that amount to RAICES. From now on I'll decline the incentive and opt-out on a daily basis by leaving the sign up.
Thank you again. This is where AskMe shines.
posted by kimberussell at 4:59 PM on October 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
I did leave a big tip on checking out, and because I spent the gift card already (see above re: flawed) I donated that amount to RAICES. From now on I'll decline the incentive and opt-out on a daily basis by leaving the sign up.
Thank you again. This is where AskMe shines.
posted by kimberussell at 4:59 PM on October 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'm curious to know from the people who worked in hotels, when you opt out daily with the door knob sign, does the housekeeper still get "Credit" and do hours go unchanged, or, if let's say they know that typically 10% or 30% or whatever percent of people tend to opt out daily, they start staffing at level lower than they would have if people typically never opted out?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:35 PM on October 29, 2018
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:35 PM on October 29, 2018
if let's say they know that typically 10% or 30% or whatever percent of people tend to opt out daily, they start staffing at level lower than they would have if people typically never opted out?
I don't work in hotels and don't know the answer, but I was thinking about this as I read this thread. Logically, I would assume the hotel has data on that just as much as they have the data of knowing what guests accepted a perk for not using housekeeping. I've seen housekeepers carrying around lists of rooms; I would presume the hotel uses that list to find out which rooms had DND up and which rooms were actually cleaned, and in turn projects for the future and staffs accordingly.
Or you could be the America's Best Value Inn and Suites in International Falls and not bother to have housekeeping come in on New Year's Day and make guests do their own housekeeping, including having to go pick up towels that should have been in the room in the first place based on the occupancy number that was reserved. (Still annoyed about that one.)
posted by tubedogg at 8:11 PM on October 29, 2018
I don't work in hotels and don't know the answer, but I was thinking about this as I read this thread. Logically, I would assume the hotel has data on that just as much as they have the data of knowing what guests accepted a perk for not using housekeeping. I've seen housekeepers carrying around lists of rooms; I would presume the hotel uses that list to find out which rooms had DND up and which rooms were actually cleaned, and in turn projects for the future and staffs accordingly.
Or you could be the America's Best Value Inn and Suites in International Falls and not bother to have housekeeping come in on New Year's Day and make guests do their own housekeeping, including having to go pick up towels that should have been in the room in the first place based on the occupancy number that was reserved. (Still annoyed about that one.)
posted by tubedogg at 8:11 PM on October 29, 2018
I'm curious to know from the people who worked in hotels, when you opt out daily with the door knob sign, does the housekeeper still get "Credit" and do hours go unchanged, or, if let's say they know that typically 10% or 30% or whatever percent of people tend to opt out daily, they start staffing at level lower than they would have if people typically never opted out?
I think something to keep in mind is that you shouldn't have just one model of what a hotel is in mind. There are huge differences between, say, a Vegas strop hotel and small family owned one in a college town. I've worked at all sorts of hotels, union, non-union, in national parks, big cities, and small towns and each hotel has a different dynamic in employee/employer relationships and in their needs.
In places like Vegas the hotel is likely going to be generating a considerable profit from ancillary activities so cost saving measures are most likely going to be used to try and keep employees in line and make money for the owners at their expense. In national parks the employees are often seasonal and live on resort properties. They receive food and lodging in addition to pay and are a mix of retirees, students from the US and abroad, "parkies", and more normal workers. Many of the employees want the perks of being able to use the park when they aren't working and treat the work itself as a means to that end. Many smaller hotels have entirely different issues, some have been owned by the same people for decades and are paid off entirely leaving the operating costs low, while others struggle to make ends meet.
Each type of hotel or resort will face different challenges in their operations which will impact the employees. In larger cities where hotels are more likely to be unionized and have large staffs, the relationship is prone to be more adversarial as cost cutting measures are more likely profit taking at employee expense. In smaller hotels cost cutting measures are often needed to simply stay afloat and keep the hotel open. In some areas the larger union hotels actively try to drive out the smaller family owned hotels to create an environment where they control the area and can set prices as they like. Resorts exist in their own realms, national parks where many employees would love added time off to resorts that employ vulnerable work forces to be able to manipulate them at will with little recourse available to the workers. There is no one size fits all model which will cover all the possibilities.
That said, yes, the general result would be to staff at lower levels. (There are the rare occasions where a hotel owner really is an environmentalist and liberal in employee treatment, so is really concerned with reducing harm but don't ever bet on seeing such an owner in the wild.) Why they are doing that can vary, some for need, others for profit. Housekeeping work even in the best of situations is often extremely variable.
Hotels, outside of those few places with constant demand for rooms, have busy and slow seasons where housekeepers are brought on when its busy and then laid off when room occupancy wanes. That's something even the unions have accepted as just part of the industry, so housekeeping work isn't ever going to be entirely stable for at least some part of the work force. The question of whether it is acceptable for hotels to allow guests to decline service and lower their staffing rates is a more fraught issue, which unions are challenging. I think that's good for the unions to do, but I'm not convinced that's how one should view all instances of the practice. I'm personally as concerned with the outside pressures on the industry like third party vendors draining revenue from hotels while demand for amenities grow, but that's outside the scope of the question at hand.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:01 AM on October 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
I think something to keep in mind is that you shouldn't have just one model of what a hotel is in mind. There are huge differences between, say, a Vegas strop hotel and small family owned one in a college town. I've worked at all sorts of hotels, union, non-union, in national parks, big cities, and small towns and each hotel has a different dynamic in employee/employer relationships and in their needs.
In places like Vegas the hotel is likely going to be generating a considerable profit from ancillary activities so cost saving measures are most likely going to be used to try and keep employees in line and make money for the owners at their expense. In national parks the employees are often seasonal and live on resort properties. They receive food and lodging in addition to pay and are a mix of retirees, students from the US and abroad, "parkies", and more normal workers. Many of the employees want the perks of being able to use the park when they aren't working and treat the work itself as a means to that end. Many smaller hotels have entirely different issues, some have been owned by the same people for decades and are paid off entirely leaving the operating costs low, while others struggle to make ends meet.
Each type of hotel or resort will face different challenges in their operations which will impact the employees. In larger cities where hotels are more likely to be unionized and have large staffs, the relationship is prone to be more adversarial as cost cutting measures are more likely profit taking at employee expense. In smaller hotels cost cutting measures are often needed to simply stay afloat and keep the hotel open. In some areas the larger union hotels actively try to drive out the smaller family owned hotels to create an environment where they control the area and can set prices as they like. Resorts exist in their own realms, national parks where many employees would love added time off to resorts that employ vulnerable work forces to be able to manipulate them at will with little recourse available to the workers. There is no one size fits all model which will cover all the possibilities.
That said, yes, the general result would be to staff at lower levels. (There are the rare occasions where a hotel owner really is an environmentalist and liberal in employee treatment, so is really concerned with reducing harm but don't ever bet on seeing such an owner in the wild.) Why they are doing that can vary, some for need, others for profit. Housekeeping work even in the best of situations is often extremely variable.
Hotels, outside of those few places with constant demand for rooms, have busy and slow seasons where housekeepers are brought on when its busy and then laid off when room occupancy wanes. That's something even the unions have accepted as just part of the industry, so housekeeping work isn't ever going to be entirely stable for at least some part of the work force. The question of whether it is acceptable for hotels to allow guests to decline service and lower their staffing rates is a more fraught issue, which unions are challenging. I think that's good for the unions to do, but I'm not convinced that's how one should view all instances of the practice. I'm personally as concerned with the outside pressures on the industry like third party vendors draining revenue from hotels while demand for amenities grow, but that's outside the scope of the question at hand.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:01 AM on October 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
If you are still worried that you are causing an issue for cleaners maybe leave a bigger tip on checkout day (when the room will be cleaned) - as you suggested.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 8:05 PM on October 28, 2018 [3 favorites]