Need hotel housekeeping? Now you may have to ask
More U.S. properties, including Hilton, have shifted to more of an opt-in service.
Las Vegas resident Ryan Pulliam had a great time during his Fourth of July weekend getaway, soaking up the sun on a California beach with his 4-year-old son, Reid.
But the state of their room at the Hotel del Coronado, a Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. beach resort, could be “disappointing” at times, he said.
Hilton recently changed its housekeeping policy to an opt-in model, which meant that for the latter part of his stay Pulliam would return to a room with no clean towels, a disheveled bed and sandy floors. He had requested housekeeping the second day of the trip but canceled the request later that day so his son could take a nap undisturbed.
“(It) was just kind of a bummer,” Pulliam said. “When little things like that don’t happen, it takes away from that experience. It was something I had to be concerned about – do we have enough towels? – versus where do we go and have more fun on the trip.”
Hotels across the U.S. have shifted away from automatic daily housekeeping services in recent months, driven by federal COVID-19 safety guidelines and labor shortages.
Hilton’s newest policy at its nonluxury U.S. properties, which went into effect Monday, offers free housekeeping upon request. Guests will have the ability to customize the level of service they receive, Hilton Senior Vice President of brand development Phil Cordell told USA TODAY.
“We’re listening to the needs of our guests at the local level, so we’ve made specific adjustments to these standards region by region to align with their preferences at this stage of the recovery,” Cordell said via email.
What are hotels’ housekeeping policies?
Housekeeping policies vary across U.S. hotel companies. Many have updated cleaning guidelines that follow guidance from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, which says hotels should not clean guestrooms occupied by the same customer over multiple days unless requested.
Here are the housekeeping policies at some of the top U.S. hotel brands:
Hilton
● Daily housekeeping at U.S. properties is available upon request.
● Guest rooms will automatically receive a full cleaning on the fifth day of an extended stay.
● Guests at Waldorf Astoria, Conrad and LXR properties will automatically receive daily housekeeping.
Marriott International Inc.
● Guests can choose their preferred housekeeping service frequency during their stay.
● Guests at luxury hotels will receive daily housekeeping unless otherwise directed by the guest.
Wyndham Hotels & Resorts Inc.
● Housekeeping services in guest rooms are “kept to a minimum unless otherwise requested,” according to the company’s website. Spokespeople did not immediately return a USA TODAY request for comment.
Extended Stay America
● Housekeeping services are scheduled based on the number of nights booked, according to the company’s website, with housekeeping frequency reduced for long-term guests to limit interactions. For those staying a week or less, fresh towels and linens are available upon request. One full-service housekeeping is provided each week for those staying eight nights or longer.
For our long-term guests, we reduced housekeeping frequency to limit guest interaction.
Many hotel brands outside of the luxury, five-star market are shifting toward an opt-in model for daily housekeeping, according to Mehmet Erdem, an associate professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’ college of hospitality.
Part of that shift is driven by guests’ comfort levels during the pandemic. Nearly two-thirds of guests surveyed in August 2020 did not want daily housekeeping, according to a poll conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of the American Hotel & Lodging Association that surveyed 2,200 American adults.
“If (guests) can get something done with less contact with the hotel staff, they’re opting for that more and more,” Erdem said.
Hotel cleaning protocols are expected to continue to evolve throughout the course of the pandemic. Hilton’s “Clean-Stay” policies “will continue and will evolve based on best practices and local laws,” according to Cordell.
The labor shortage’s role
Hospitality experts say new housekeeping protocols are also driven by the labor shortage felt across a number of service industries.
The U.S. leisure and hospitality industry lost nearly half of its 16.9 million jobs in March and April 2020, according to Tourism Economics, an Oxford Economics company. Hotel companies, now faced with a travel demand surge, are rushing to fill those open spots.
“There’s a huge shortage. … We are seeing people say that this is a transient job, it’s not a career path, I’m opting in for something else,” Erdem said. “I think it will be very normal to (not have) daily housekeeping, but you have to opt-in, you have to request it, or you ask for extra linen or towels.”
Erdem doesn’t expect to see housekeeping jobs at U.S. hotels return to prepandemic levels any time soon.
Hilton’s Cordell called the availability of labor “the single biggest challenge” for the industry at this time. Employment decisions are made by each hotel under the Hilton brand.
“We will continue to work with our ownership community to manage the new realities of running a hotel while responding to guest feedback and maintaining the high standards and hospitality one would expect from Hilton,” Cordell said.
As of Wednesday, more than 118,000 hotel job openings were listed on Indeed.com. Industry trade groups have been working to help fill those spots. The AHLA launched a “Hotels are Hiring” campaign in Phoenix; San Diego; Orlando, Florida; Nashville, Tennessee; and Washington, D.C., that talks up the benefits of hospitality careers.
“(It) was just kind of a bummer. When little things like that don’t happen, it takes away from that experience.” Ryan Pulliam Vacationer on the lack of housekeeping at his hotel