On Monday, we received a phone call from a reporter at Fox 35 Orlando wanting to interview us about green housekeeping and hotels offering financial incentives to guests that chose to skip out on housekeeping during their stay. Our very own, Erik Folgate, was interviewed for the piece. It was a short cameo in the story, but it was still some good exposure for RezHub. Thanks to Fox News!
At more than 150 Sheraton and Westin properties in North America, you get rewarded for opting out of daily housekeeping. In other words, if you stay more than one night, every morning you hang that sign on the door and tell the maid to not enter the room, you get a hotel credit for food and beverages or 500 Starwood points. This is only at select Sheratons and Westins. Some other select hotels have experimented with this such as the Seaport Hotel in Boston offering free valet for hybrid and electric vehicles, and the MarMara hotel in Manhattan offering a $20 credit off of your hotel stay for every night you opt out of housekeeping.
While less housekeeping on a daily basis is good for the environment, many people feel that hotels are trying to cut corners and save mone on housekeeping staff. They feel that it will reduce the amount of housekeeping jobs in the hospitality industry. I think the way to prevent this is for hotels to cross train their housekeeping staff so they can transition to other areas of work within the hotel if the demand for housekeeping goes down significantly.
