Hotel patrons looking at their bills can sometimes wonder where exactly all that money is going. For people staying at economic hotels in particular, the bills can seem somewhat surprising. At first glance, economical hotel rooms seem fairly simple, with all the basic amenities and few other attractions. Unlocking the hidden costs can reveal quite a lot about the economics of running a hotel.
Looking around a hotel room, it would seem that things like telephones and televisions would be financial sinks, and they probably are, at least somewhat. Certainly hotel patrons do not always have the reputation of perfectly respecting the features of their hotel rooms. However, that goes doubly for hotel bathrooms. Anyone who has ever worked as a custodian or as part of the support staff in a hotel will often approach recently used hotel bathrooms with trepidation. Indeed, when hotel patrons spend their money on their rooms, they are disproportionately paying for their bathroom facilities.
Nearly all the aspects and amenities of hotel bedrooms are at least reusable. Sheets can be washed, and televisions can usually be fixed. In the best of times, the hotel patrons will leave everything in their hotel bedrooms more or less as it was when they first entered. Even the most conscientious hotel patrons will not successfully leave the bathrooms completely untouched, however. They will still have to unpack that disposable hotel bar soap for their showers. They will still use the packaged disposable cups for brushing their teeth. Almost everything that hotels provide for their guests, and must replace each guest, will be found in the bathroom.
Hotels tend to generate huge water bills. Having a hotel full of people to feed and support has its challenges, and maintaining a good water supply is one of them. Hotel patrons, freed from the constraints of having to directly pay the water bills themselves, may take long showers with abandon. Hotels will often have to specifically offer the opportunity to do so, to stay competitive. Since the room rate is usually a rate that has been established before any extreme water usage, when a hotel patron decides to leave the water running all day, it is the hotel that is stuck with the bill at the end.
Many hotels are trying to save money on their water bills by advising their patrons to leave notices when it is unnecessary to wash the sheets during the day. However, the water expenditures involved with laundry will just never compare with the expenditures involved with showers. Then of course, when the time inevitably comes to thoroughly clean the hotel room, the staff will have to spend much more time cleaning the bathroom than any other part of the hotel room.
Though, the distribution of the costs for hotel rooms shouldn’t trouble patrons too much. Patrons should all expect to have nice bedrooms and clean bathrooms, and the more expensive half is indeed worth every penny.