2:20 AM
Vinay Singh
My hands were as dry as parchment when I checked into Washington’s Donovan House hotel on a bitterly cold day last winter. Eager for some moisturizer, I went straight to the bathroom, where I discovered that — egad! — there was no moisturizer to be found. Nor was there any shower gel for bathing, just plain old skin-drying soap. I was perplexed. Where were my favorite toiletries?
For a while there, you could count on your average hotel room to be almost as well-stocked as a Wal-Mart. Walk into the bathroom and you’d find shampoo, conditioner, lotion, mouthwash, a shower cap and not one but two bars of soap, in case you didn’t want to lather your body with the same suds that oozed over your hands. Lost a button on your blouse? Mending kit right this way. Want to buff your shoes? Grab the shoe mitt.
But the recession put the brakes on such bountiful in-room accouterments. Suddenly, shampoo was in, conditioner was out — kind of like a restaurant placing a salt shaker on a table without its pepper twin. The Frankenstein of bathroom toiletries — the bath gel and shampoo combo — appeared in many showers. And forget about needle and thread and shoe mitts. If you needed a shoeshine, you had to pay for one.
Now, though, the hotel business is reviving as people start to travel again. But the never-ending competition for guests is fiercer than ever, because travelers are being pickier than ever.
The upshot? The latest war of the amenities.
By offering new and varied extras in their rooms, hotels “think they will have differentiation,” said Glenn Haussman, editor-in-chief of industry magazine Hotel Interactive. “But other brands pick up on them, and the leads gained are lost quickly.”
Let’s get one thing out of the way: In any economy, luxury hotels offer more amenities, budget hotels fewer. But some things are universal.
“I remember in 1967, we had a major decision to make in the Sheraton: Should we make it mandatory for all our hotels to have color TVs?” recalled Joseph A. McInerney, president and chief executive officer of the American Hotel and Lodging Association. “It shows you how far we’ve come.”
McInerney can offer a ticktock of the milestones: After color TV came the TV-plus-remote, then the clock radio. In the 1960s, shampoo became a must. Lotions, mouthwash and more followed. The 1970s saw the introduction of sewing kits, shoe mitts and shoe horns. In the early 1990s, coffeemakers appeared in the room. At the end of the century, irons and ironing boards became de rigueur.
McInerney can’t remember who came up with which idea (why a sewing kit and not earplugs?), but they had their reasons. “Hotels don’t just wake up one morning and say, ‘Gee, I’m going to do this because the consumer wants it.’ The hotel industry does research,” he said. “We’re always looking to get an edge on our competitors.”
Here’s a look at the latest stage in the evolution of hotel rooms and the treats they dangle before us.
Getting fancy, and frugal
Hotel guests are like celebrities: They love their swag. And not just any swag, but brand-name swag.
Which is why the Marriotts and Hyatts of the world have stopped tagging their toiletries with their own names in favor of L’Occitane, Molton Brown and other spa lines. Even midrange and boutique hotels have gotten into the act. Guests can get blissful with Bliss products at Starwood’s Aloft hotels and others. Bath and Body Works work their magic at the newly renovated Holiday Inns. Morgans Hotel Group boasts Apothia products.
“People have more trust in a product that they may be somewhat familiar with,” said Prem Devadas, president of Salamander Hospitality, which owns several hotels. “When you put your logo on the bottle, they don’t know what the product is.”
Not that there’s always an unlimited supply of these aromatic delights.
“In the early ’90s, the bathroom was full of stuff,” said Lara Weiss, global director for sales for K Hotels, a marketing company representing independently owned hotels worldwide. “You almost had too much of it. Travelers just put it in their purse. It was an expense.”
Some boutique hotels, such as the Affinia Liaison Capitol Hill, now put their shampoo and conditioner in dispensers attached to the shower wall. “It clearly presents cost savings in a hotel and also leads to a reduction in the amount of waste,” said Jeff Gurtman, vice president of strategy for Dana Communications in Hopewell, N.J., a marketing agency for several global hotel chains.
Also, don’t always expect a bathtub. The powers-that-be have ruled that travelers, especially business travelers, don’t have time for a soak in the bubbles. At the Tryp by Wyndham brand’s first hotel in New York, set to open this summer, three-quarters of the rooms will have only showers with European-style hand-held shower heads.
While fancier bath products have made their way into the hotel room, shower caps, sewing kits, mouthwash, shoe mitts, shoehorns and other “nonessential” items are making an inglorious exit (a nod to you klepto guests). But here’s a secret: They haven’t left the building. If you call the front desk or housekeeping and ask nicely, someone will probably make a special delivery to your room.
