close
close

Apre-salomemanzo

Breaking: Beyond Headlines!

    • Hotels Adopt Day Passes to Find New Users for Pools and Other Amenities
    aecifo

    Hotels Adopt Day Passes to Find New Users for Pools and Other Amenities

    Umito Posted on

    Hannah Ziegler
    | Washington Post

    Honolulu resident Melanie Alano regularly enjoys the idyllic beaches and expensive cabins that dot her tourist town. But she’s always had a hard time feeling like she’s on vacation in Hawaii because her job connects her to the real world, while travelers can completely disconnect.

    But now Alano can blend in with the carefree crowds sipping piña-coladas at his favorite resorts thanks to a growing trend in the hotel industry: day passes that allow people to use hotel amenities without rent a room.

    “We do day passes to feel like we’re part of the crowd,” Alano, 52, said. “When you’re around people who are on vacation, you feel like you’re on vacation.”

    As vacationers limit their spending and take trips closer to home, hotels face rising labor costs and declining travel spending. These factors – and a decline in occupancy rates at the height of the pandemic – have fueled a new business model for the hotel industry. Thousands of hotels, especially in popular tourist destinations like Florida and Hawaii, now rent out their pools, spas, offices and cabanas to guests without requiring them to book a room, providing a separate revenue stream for hotels .

    The trend is here to stay, according to hospitality consultant and former hotel manager Anthony Melchiorri.

    “People are looking for different ways to get away for a half day, and for hotels and resorts, things aren’t getting any cheaper,” Melchiorri said. “Every space in this hotel, if not in use at any time, can be used. This is a perishable item. It’s a waste. »

    The average price of hotel rooms increased nearly 14% between August 2019 and August 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Inflation in overnight stays has slowed over the past year as hotels have found ways to cut costs, but luxury rates have remained high. Average nightly rates in the luxury hotel industry are 60% higher this year than in 2019, according to Virtuoso, a global network of luxury travel agencies. This increase peaked in July, when the average cost of a luxury hotel room in the United States was 65% higher than the same month in 2019.

    These increases have weighed on travel-loving consumers like Fort Lauderdale, Fla., resident Lillya Nashanchik.

    Like many Americans, Nashanchik’s trips were longer and more frequent before the pandemic. But now, instead of paying $350 to $500 per night at her favorite hotel, she buys a day pass to the pool or cabana about once a month for less than $100.

    “I arrive early in the morning, spend the whole day there, enjoy it to the fullest, then go home,” says Nashanchik, 56. “It saves me a lot of money.”

    Consumers also use day passes to bridge the gap between hotel payments and flights on longer vacations or to avoid resort fees that hotels often add to their nightly rates. These fees for amenities such as swimming pools and gyms are more common in high-end hotels and have recently been criticized for their lack of transparency.

    ResortPass, a site that facilitates the booking of day passes between consumers and resorts, has tripled its business over the past two years as consumers shortened their vacations, Chief Executive Michael Wolf said. The company works with more than 1,700 hotels and adds about 100 new ones to the platform every month, he said.

    Hilton launched a partnership with ResortPass this year and has more than 175 hotels on the app, according to Jessica Shea, the company’s vice president of wellness, retail and leisure operations for the Americas. Hyatt has about 240 hotels offering day pass activities, including some through ResortPass, according to Asad Ahmed, Hyatt’s senior vice president of commercial sales for the Americas. Many other major chains, including Marriott and Wyndham, have properties on the app.

    “There will always be an overnight guest, but day guests can supplement them, and that’s great for the hotel,” Wolf said. “This generates ancillary revenue, introduces new customers, helps fill underutilized amenities, and increases food and beverage spending.”

    Hotels typically prioritize increasing room revenue, which accounts for the majority of their sales, over overall revenue, said Vanja Bogicevic, clinical associate professor of hotel marketing at New York University. But the pandemic was a “wake-up call” that showed the industry it couldn’t count on the stability of sold-out overnight stays, Bogicevic said.

    While many hotel chains have launched day pass deals due to the pandemic, Shea said, the trend has exploded as value-hungry consumers seek experiences that promote self-care and wellness.

    “People really want to have meaningful experiences and get the most out of their vacation or their trip, and I think we can broaden that to say it’s not just about travel, it’s also about time off, family time, time well spent,” Shea said. . “People may be reducing their spending, but those values ​​don’t change. »

    Day pass users avoid a hotel’s nightly rate, but often spend more on food, drinks and activities than overnight guests, making their presence a “win-win” for hotels , Shea added.

    Day guests also contribute to brand loyalty, Bogicevic said. For younger consumers who can’t afford a weekend stay, booking a day pass at a luxury hotel makes future stays more likely as their purchasing power increases.

    Before the pandemic, U.S. hotels were concerned about compromising their brand exclusivity, consultant Melchiorri said. But over the past year, many U.S. hotel chains have sought to strengthen their ties to their communities — a long-standing priority in other parts of the world, Bogicevic said.

    “Covid created an opportunity where travel stopped, but you had the opportunity to offer services to people in your local markets,” Ahmed added. “Over the last couple of years, as we come out of Covid, you have travel again, but you have that relationship that you’ve built with your local communities.”

    The success of day pass programs has shown hotels that overnight guests won’t bother — or often won’t even notice — other guests sharing pools and spas, Melchiorri said. Today, the hospitality industry must balance logistics for overnight and day guests as demand for shorter trips increases.

    Some hotels are “still working out the kinks” of setting up a new third-party platform to coordinate day passes, said Anne Nemer, a 41-year-old Los Angeles resident who recently purchased a day pass for the hotel’s pool. ‘a neighboring hotel. Although her ResortPass reservation called for an 11 a.m. check-in time, the concierge told her and a friend that the facilities wouldn’t open until noon. They arrived at the cabin to find the pool and bar closed and the staff still getting ready for the day.

    Nemer described the first experience as “boring” and “clumsy.” But once the pool and bar opened, it was worth saving on the hotel and flight costs that have allowed him to avoid longer vacations in recent years.

    “This won’t deter us from doing it again,” Nemer said. “It’s such a fun way to make a weekend special without having to spend double the money or time.” After that, everything was really nice. They just weren’t ready.

    In the future, new hotel developments could also evolve to increase the number of common areas that can provide day pass revenue for each brand, Bogicevic said.

    Although revenue from day passes will never exceed revenue from overnight stays, Melchiorri said, the added business model provides too many benefits for hotels to abandon, even as economic conditions improve and travel spending increases.

    “I think we’ve broken the barrier from a hotel standpoint,” Melchiorri said. “It is malpractice if you do not use an empty pool chair or spa to generate additional revenue. Every little gesture counts. »

    Umito
    View all posts

    You Might Also Like