The Things Hotels Still Can’t Get Right

ATLANTA—With an 11 p.m. arrival and predawn departure, I didn’t need much from my $146-a-night Hyatt Place by the airport.

Well, except for a glass of wine to take to my room. The front-desk agent doubling as lobby bartender delivered not a house red or white but bad news: The Hyatt Place was out of wine. And club soda, and limes, and most of the beers on display.

It was a minor annoyance, but one that travelers of all stripes are encountering at hotels this summer. At a Home2 Suites by Hilton hotel in Orlando, Fla., the pool was out of order for a day, the shampoo dispenser in the shower was empty and a sign on the breakfast buffet discouraged taking too much food because of supply issues. In Newport, R.I., reaching the front desk at my $500-a-night Marriott hotel was difficult, and the Starbucks didn’t open until 7 a.m. All in the span of a week.

Hyatt didn’t respond to requests for comment. Marriott declined to comment.

Airlines get grief for service shortfalls two years into the travel surge, but hotels are struggling too. If it isn’t shabby rooms from projects put off during the pandemic, it’s fewer amenities or lackluster service. We’ve heard a lot from readers on this topic. One told us that he and his colleagues have a competition to see who has a working ice machine on the hotel floor. The winner buys drinks for the group.

Hotel problems are particularly frustrating because we’re paying more for rooms on business trips and vacations. Hotel rates in the top 25 U.S. markets were up 9.3% year-to-date through May from the same period a year earlier, according to hospitality analytics firm STR.

Several destinations have seen double-digit-percentage increases in average daily rates, including New York, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Las Vegas and San Francisco.

Late cancellation

Frequent traveler Elizabeth Estes, an entrepreneur in Saugatuck, Mich., estimates she has spent 60 to 70 nights in hotels this year. She describes the overall experience as inconsistent. 

She and her partner are vacationing in Europe this month with family and had a great stay at a Hilton in Munich. Not so much at the airport Hilton last week in Zurich, where she had so many service snags during a one-night stay, she canceled rooms she had reserved there for the trip home. 

Estes says she couldn’t find a shuttle schedule on the hotel’s website, so she called the Hilton from the airport train and had trouble reaching anyone.

“It’s like press one for reservations, press two for restaurants and then stay on the line for everything else,’’ she says. “I ended up getting cut off four times in a row.’’

The shuttle, it turned out, doesn’t operate during certain afternoon hours, so they had to pay for a taxi. At the hotel, the couple waited 45 minutes for a drink at the bar despite trying to flag a server down. They run a restaurant in Michigan and sympathize with staffing challenges, but were unwilling to repeat their stay. Estes says she canceled the rooms she had booked for her family for this weekend ahead of their flights home.

 A Hilton

Rising expectations

Hotel satisfaction scores showed improvement in the most recent American Customer Satisfaction Index. The American Hotel and Lodging Association says its recent surveys show about 80% guest satisfaction. 

That’s mainly because traveler expectations “had dropped to the floor’’ during the pandemic, says Chekitan Dev, professor at Cornell University’s Nolan School of Hotel Administration. Expectations have been rising as prices have too, he says.

“You have this sort of widening gap between the expectation and the experience, and that’s what’s causing the angst,’’ he says.

Hotels are trying to do more with less as they face ongoing staff shortages, supply issues and high costs. An STR report this month found that hotel profit margins are growing because of higher room rates and managing expenses “through reduced services, lower employment levels and changes in operation.’’

Dev says the hotels have “service delusion.’’ They think they can get away with fewer front-desk workers today because it worked during the pandemic, when travelers wanted fewer interactions.

“You can’t go accelerating your prices way beyond 2019 and then give service that was below 2019 [levels],” he says.

Hotel owner Bharat Patel, chairman of the Asian American Hotel Owners Association trade group, says the lack of workers remains hotels’ biggest issue.

“I can deal with almost any supply issue,’’ he says. “If we’re out of eggs, double up on bacon. Everyone wants protein.’’

They can also borrow supplies from a sister hotel, but that’s not an option for, say, housekeepers.

Patel says that for now, most guests are forgiving—to a point. 

“They’re not if the rate tripled because Taylor Swift was in town,’’ he says.

Shane Close, who lives in Florida and travels frequently in his job as a design leader for a tech company, says he still sees signs asking guests to excuse service shortcomings. He has seen hotel coffee carts with no coffee and has repeatedly had to remind front-desk employees about the perks he gets for his elite status.

“I think you almost get used to it, and that’s the sad part about it,’’ he says.

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Write to Dawn Gilbertson at [email protected]