The 208 Billions dollar a year Hotel Industry is massively competitive.
Location, branding and architecture are all very important.
But in here is where the competition gets particularly heated.
Hotel Amenities, which are pretty much everything that's provided by hotels outside of the
room and bed are an easy way for one hotel to set themselves apart from others.
Some amenities we've come to take for granted, TV seems more like a minimal requirement than
an added feature by this point.
Some amenities seem obvious but have never caught on.
Why are three different soaps and two kinds of lotion commonly available but toothpaste
never provided?
Occasionally a chain of hotels introduces an innovative amenity, and the other chain's
race to catch up and one-up each other creates a intense period of amenity competition.
Let's look at these hotel amenities wars, and see if we maybe we're in the midst of
another one right now.
The most recent and intense Amenity war centered around bedding.
It started in 1999 when Starwood's Westin introduced the "Heavenly Bed" the floral
prints bedspreads were replace with a white-on-white bedding package by Simmons with a pillow top
mattress containing 900 coils, three sheets, (ranging in thread count from 180 to 250)
and a down blanket available in three different thicknesses depending on the climate.
The move to white-on-white bedding actually caused the cleanliness scores for the hotel
to go up.
Not only did things look cleaner, but the hotels were actually forced to watch the bedding
more frequently since the white bedding didn't hide dirt and stains as well as the darker
floral patterns.
Hyatt was not to be left behind.
They fired back with the "Grand Bed," a Sealy Posturepedic mattress with down blankets
and 250-thread-count triple sheeting.
And none of this was cheap.
Marriott spent $190 million to upgrade beds at its family of hotels, each king-size bed
at Marriott featured 300-thread-count cotton sheets, seven pillows, a fluffy mattress cover
and a white duvet.
Each chain introduced their own take on luxurious bedding, the battle culminating with The Pan
Pacific Vancouver installing $10,000 British-made Hypnos Duchess mattress.
But the war wouldn't end there, it would move to the bathroom before settling down
for a while, Westin spending over $10 millions dollars to upgrade it's bathroom amenities.
When an amenity shows up in an amenity war, it doesn't always stick around.
The the 60s the battles were fought over color televisions, remote controls and clock radios.
Those are here to stay.
But the sewing kits, and shoe horns of the 70's are relics of the era.
Even the mini-bar rising to prominence in the 90s is being phased out for the most part.
Hotels choose amenities that they think will provide a feeling of luxury at a low cost
to the hotel, so they don't necessarily go for the stuff you expect to have at home.
Sometimes in the race to set themselves apart hotels introduce amenities that border on
the absurd.
Wax for sealing letters, cowboy hats and bandanas, cats that can visit your room, video cameras,
dictionaries, in-room exercise bikes, and rare books have all made an appearance as
amenities over the years.
While these things might seem like nice free bonuses for guests, it's important to remember
that you're paying for the cost of the amenities somewhere.
The $20 worth of soaps and coffee might be subsidized by the $30 a night parking fee.
And they can generate a massive amount of waste.
Hotels and travelers combined throw out as many as 5 million used bars of soap a day.
Charity organizations like Clean the World, are working to recycle as much of this as
possible, providing soap to places that need it.
But currently only 20% of US hotels are involved, meaning the large majority of soap is still
being thrown away.
So when can we expect the next amenities war?
We might be on the brink of one at the moment.
This year a localized skirmish in Nashville erupted, leading to chef-prepared meals for
pets, recording studios, and a choice of buckwheat, latex or goose-down pillows are all being
offered as amenities at various hotels in the area.
Maybe the most interesting amenity I've come across?
Humans.
In 2016 Westin started it's running concierge program in an effort to bring locals around
the hotel in an effort to provide a more local atmosphere for the guests who like to run.
Ultimately hotel amenities are a great case study for how competition in a market can
generate both useful progress that benefits the customer, and ridiculous features that
will be laughed at
around campfires for generations.
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