8 Non-Essential Hotel Features And Amenities Hoteliers Can Ditch To Cut Down Costs

It’s no secret that hotels are struggling after the pandemic slowed down the hospitality and tourism sector for a couple of months. We’ve seen hotels facing a significant drop in revenue due to the drastic decrease in bookings. Others were forced to declare bankruptcy and shut down. However, it’s nice to see that the world is gradually reopening its doors to travel.

Do you own a hotel and lodging business? If you’re one of the lucky ones to survive the pandemic, your hotel revenue managers might be taking steps to recover, recoup the losses, and move forward.

Aside from strengthening your property’s health and safety measures to prevent the transmission of COVID-19, every hotelier should also do cost-cutting procedures. Let’s start with the easy ones: the hotel staples and amenities guests don’t really care about.

If you’re a hotelier who’s cutting down expenses while creating an eco-friendly hotel image, here are 8 hotel staples you can guiltlessly eliminate.

1. Useless decorative pillows and bed accessories

Guests who simply want a clean and comfortable crisp white bed, with plush pillows and breathable linens, don’t really care about this stuff.

Decorative pillows are not only unnecessary – they also attract dust and mites and they’re also not routinely washed after each guest visit. Another thing to ditch is bed scarves, which are usually the first thing guests fling off the bed when they arrive.

Aside from not doing anything to enhance the guest’s stay experience, these unnecessary bed accessories also cost hoteliers money to launder.

2. “Fresh sheets daily” service

Speaking of bed sheets, many hotels concerned with water conservatIon are already ditching the “fresh sheets daily” feature. Most eco-friendly guests are more than willing to comply with less frequent linen changes.

3. Fancy breakfast buffets

Okay, we’d be lying if we say guests don’t love buffets. They do. However, you can use coronavirus prevention measures as an opportunity to scale back on buffet options, which can significantly eliminate food and money wastage.

Instead, you may offer delicious packaged meals that can be picked up or delivered door-to-door. Provide the basics, focusing on freshness and overall quality. The savings can be used to fund cleaning efforts, which are necessary during this time.

4. Daily housekeeping feature

Daily housekeeping visits can be seen as an unnecessary intrusion than an essential amenity. Hotel guests don’t want to be bothered, especially if they’re only staying for a night or two.

Skipping housekeeping is also beneficial for environmental reasons. This will reduce energy and water consumption since guests will just call the housekeeping service only when it’s really needed.

5. Printed in-room marketing materials

Hotels normally place brochures about their property, local attractions, nearby restaurants, and loyalty programs in their guest rooms, hoping people will read them. Unfortunately, guests are more likely to ignore them. These fliers, which cost money to make, end up in the recycling bin.

6. Business centers

Back in the day, business centers were a valuable amenity for business travelers, who needed easy computer access for work purposes. Unfortunately, we’re in 2020. Travelers now have their smartphones, tablets, and laptops in their luggage, and they can work from their hotel room.

With this, hotels can cut down costs by eliminating their business centers. They can, however, retain Bluetooth-enabled printers to accommodate those who occasionally need to print out a document.

7. Branded and heavily-scented bathroom amenities

Hotel guests love free toiletries, especially when they’re packaged in cute bottles. Most guests, however, don’t care whether their free shampoo and soap bars are branded or not. They only care whether or not the scent suits their liking.

Hotels often invest money and time in choosing bathroom amenities. You can cut down costs by sticking to cheaper yet high-quality and ph-balanced toiletries with milder scents. Guests won’t really care about the label if the products can leave them feeling clean and refreshed.

8. Non-essential extras that have nothing to do with improving the guest experience

Have you ever been to a hotel and thought, “okay, the decors are nice but it sucks that they’re useless yet included in the bill.” Hotel guests who are either a minimalist or a frugal one (or both) want to make sure they’re getting their money’s worth.

While hotels work hard to make the guests’ stay as memorable as possible, other properties might have gone a little overboard with their extras. For example, we can name a real hotel that has peculiar services like taking care of guests’ goldfish, hiring a “sleep concierge” and a “pet psychologist”, and giving guests over the top gifts.

If your hotel has these costly gimmicks, feel free to cut them, and focus on the basics of hospitality.