I hope that in the coming years hotels find a way around resort fees and the like which I personally find very pesky and a challenge to explain to my clients. I have trouble selling the value of these fees which often times pay for products and services which non-resorts include or allow a la carte pricing for. In much the same way as airlines who charge for baggage, I’d much prefer the hotels inflate the cost of the rooms and include these resort fees so it doesn’t look so nickel and dimey.
Resort fees typically cover things like fitness facility admission, newspaper, water bottles, morning coffee, internet access, parking, etc. A number of these items guests might feel more comfortable paying if they were able to pick and choose the services they needed. And how ironic that low cost, limited service hotels often include the cost of internet in their rate, but mega luxury resorts often times cannot.
And if we can accept a resort fee, I must admit that I’m much more apt to digest it if it’s a flat fee attached to each guest’s room. Where I beg pardon is a resort fee which is based on a percentage of my room rate. When I last stayed in Puerto Rico at a oceanfront resort, I was charged an 11% resort fee on my room which included things like parking and towels on the beach. I happened to be paying a moderately low rate at the time. But hypothetically what you have here is a person paying $11 a day for these items if they’re paying $100 per night at the hotel and conceivably $22 a day if their room rate were $200. That this could be paying for the same admission to the fitness facility and for towels is an injustice and something I find myself continuing to lobby against.