Discontinued room service

Discontinued room service, New York City’s largest hotel, the New York Hilton Midtown, has sparked a renewed discussion of just who ever paid those outrageous prices to get bad food delivered to their room in the first place.

Crain’s New York Business said that the 2,000 room hotel will discontinue the room service in August, allowing it to shed 55 jobs. The cost-cutting measure will likely spread citywide, since room service has apparently become a huge loser for hotels.

A Hilton statement said that “most full service hotels…[have] continued to see a decline in traditional room service requests over the last several years.”

They’ll replace the service with a cafeteria, which is not too surprising, since most room service food around the world is of cafeteria quality anyway.  Hotels want you out of the room and drinking in the bar or casino, so they make little effort to disguise the fact that you don’t get the same quality in your room as you get in the restaurants.

John Fox, a consultant, told Crain’s that room service just keeps losing money because of the labor costs:  “I’m sure that all the big hotels will be looking at what Hilton is doing.”

Well, I’m not a big old hotel consultant, but what did hotels think would happen when they charged $100 for a bottle of $15 vodka and $50 for a $12 hamburger?

And then they tacked on a $10 service charge plus an 18 percent delivery charge plus the guy who delivered the food then has the nerve to ask for an additional gratuity on top? I get tired just typing that sentence and, yes, I’ve actually had that happen. Fortunately, I was on a comp, so I guess my host got hit with all the charges and fees.

But most people are expected to pay. And they might make the mistake of ordering room service once, but they’re not going to make it twice.

It’s 2013.  We all have cell phones, guys. We’ll just call the pizza delivery chain down the street, give the delivery guy five or ten bucks, and pocket the fifty we’ve saved.

So the hotels end up with a room service staff that mostly delivers food to people who don’t pay their own bills.

I think some hotels figured that business travelers on expense accounts would continue to pay anything. However, after the 2007 economic crash, almost every business has taken a hard line on travel expenses.

So who does that leave to order room service?  Kept women?  People staying in the hotel on stolen credit cards?  It doesn’t sound like a business model, folks.

You know what?

Hilton Midtown executives didn’t go to prison for highway robbery, and neither did any of the other thousands of hotel executives who ripped off travelers with ridiculous room service prices and service charges for bad food. They should be happy with that outcome.

As an honest person who pays my bills, I don’t use room service. I’m afraid to. So why not discontinue room service?

Discontinued room service 2013-06-02T12:22:00-07:00 Rating: 4.5 Diposkan Oleh: My Videos Tube