Some hotel traditions fading quickly away
By BARBARA DE LOLLIS
USA Today
As hotels spend billions on 21st-century upgrades, younger generations of travelers will grow up sleeping in a new breed of hotel.
The money is going for things such as better beds, splashier showers, trendier bars and flat-screen TVs.
A recent survey by the American Hotel & Lodging Association suggests the transformation is well under way in an industry that this year is spending $5 billion on upgrades.
Of 9,300 U.S. hotels in the survey, 69 percent had upgraded their bedding in the past year; 72 percent were offering voice mail; 82 percent had wireless Internet; and virtually all were wired for cable or satellite television.
Gone are the floral, synthetic bedspreads, the sanitizer bands around toilet seats, ashtrays and wake-up calls from real people.
Roy Watson, 85, who ran a Minnesota hotel chain for 25 years until retiring in 1978, decries the replacement of people with technology.
"Hotels have lost the personal touch," says Watson.
USA Today asked hoteliers, professors and travelers to recall amenities or services that have disappeared or are on the way out.
Here are some often-mentioned memories:
In the past decade, most hotels have switched to automated wake-up calls. In many cases, it's not even necessary to ask a desk clerk for a wake-up. Guests can use the telephone keypad to program their own.
"They were a gimmick,"' says Watson, former CEO of the now-defunct Kahler chain who also served as president of the American Hotel & Lodging Association in the 1960s.
Hotels ultimately got rid of the coin-operated beds because, "they never worked" and were a source of complaints, says AHLA president Joseph McInerney.
You'll still see them in Europe, but the big keys vanished from most U.S. hotels about 25 years ago. Today, hotels use lightweight, ATM-like key cards for greater security and guest convenience. They are also cheap to replace if people nab them as souvenirs.
Hotels stopped bothering because "we all know they're phony," Watson says. He says housekeepers would "take an old wet towel, pick it up, wipe the seats and put the band over it saying it's sanitized. It's a lot of baloney."
At a time when people rely on e-mail, instant messaging and cell phones to connect, many hotels are phasing out complimentary stationery and postcards. "Who uses them?" asks Cindy Johnson, an executive at Accor Hotels.
At the 2,000-room Marriott Marquis in Manhattan, general manager Mike Stengel says guests use the stationery more for scrap paper than correspondence. It's one reason front desks rarely sell stamps anymore.
Since the Westin chain came out with its Heavenly Bed in 1999, the emphasis gradually shifted from box springs to a quality mattress and sheets.
In the old days, guests could open the windows in their room. No more.
Roger Dow, a former Marriott executive who now runs the Travel Industry Association, says concerns about safety, liability and energy efficiency have forced most windows shut. Dow misses being able to open windows to get some fresh air "and sounds of the city you're visiting."
Some hotels still have them, but they've mostly disappeared. Literally.
"People are going to take them if they need them," Watson says, referring to guests and employees.
Stengel says the trend toward centralizing laundry operations with 30 or 40 hotels has also made logo towels difficult to maintain. For instance, a robe that said Newark Marriott recently popped up at his Manhattan hotel.
