Stop gouging hotel visitors
It’s time to end the resort fee ripoff. As a worldwide tourist destination, Florida should be a leader in looking out for consumers. Instead, too many hotels are looking out for themselves by gouging guests with resort fees of $25 a day or more.
It’s wrong. It may be illegal. But nobody with the power to act is doing anything about it.
A resort fee is not included as part of the room rate. That way, hotels can make their rates appear lower than they are. Nor can fees be found on third-party booking sites. They are added later to the customer’s bill as the supposed cost of using a pool, fitness center and other services. It’s known as “drip pricing” to describe a tactic in which the full cost of a room is revealed slowly, drip by drip.
As the internet emerged as a popular platform for hotel reservations, the practice has escalated in South Florida, the Keys and Orlando, in addition to Las Vegas, California, Hawaii and New York. Six years ago, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sent warning letters to hotels, to no avail. Watchdogs say it’s out of control as an industry dependent on loyalty of returning customers feels an increasing backlash. But consumers need to make more noise because the people elected to protect us from this behavior are silent.
A leading critic of resort fees is Lauren Wolfe, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who created the website killresortfees.com after staying at hotels in Miami Beach and Key West. “It’s just a way for them to lie about the advertised room rate,” Wolfe said. “They don’t care about transparency.” Her simple advice: Guests should refuse to pay resort fees.
A native of Michigan, Wolfe said she has vacationed in Florida most of her life. Her criticism of resort fees so antagonized the industry that Visit Florida blocked her on Twitter last year. After we asked why, the taxpayer-funded agency unblocked Wolfe this week.
Florida’s tax-collection agency, the Department of Revenue, says resort fees are taxable because they are part of a room charge, which is subject to taxes. In its administrative rules, the agency offers an example that seems to encourage travelers to object:
A guest rents a room in a resort hotel that charges each guest a $5 resort fee to receive daily newspapers and use of its health club facilities. When a guest objects to the fee, the hotel will waive the fee for that individual guest. All guests receive the newspaper and may use health club facilities, whether or not the guest pays the fee. The $5 resort fee charged by the resort hotel to its guests is included in the room rates subject to tax.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody should follow the lead of colleagues in Nebraska and Washington, D.C., who have filed lawsuits against the Hilton and Marriott chains to outlaw resort fees. “Bait-and-switch advertising and deceptive pricing practices are illegal,” the D.C. attorney general, Karl Racine, said in July.
The Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act exists to protect consumers.
That law gives Moody enforcement power, but she has been quiet on this issue. Moody’s office said she is working with other attorneys general on a multistate approach to resort fees, and how they are disclosed to consumers.
Don’t let the term “resort fee” mislead you. The charges aren’t exclusive to highend resorts. They are also found among modest hotels in Kissimmee, where budget-minded families stay when they go to Walt Disney World.
See for yourself. If you want to avoid resort fees, use the website resortfeechecker.com, which tracks them nationwide.
The hotel industry is a political player, with $2.3 million in contributions since the early 2000s, mostly to Republicans. Carol Dover, president and CEO of the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association, a trade group, said resort fees must be disclosed: “They have to be transparent,” Dover told the Sun Sentinel, but she did not convincingly defend them.
Tourism is a pillar of Florida’s economy. We call on pro-consumer legislators in both parties to act in the 2020 session to end this practice. Hold hotels accountable. Tell customers the whole story. End the resort fee ripoff, once and for all.
Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Sergio Bustos, Steve Bousquet and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson.