Hotels: towards the end of resort fees? Not so fast!

Resort fees are a practice hated by guests and loved by many hotels. A recent settlement following a complaint led Marriott to decide to change its practices in this field. Is this the end of a controversial practice? We’re not that sure…

What are “Resort Fees”?

A Resort Fee is a lump sum that a hotel – and more specifically a resort, as this practice is unique to them – charges you to take advantage of some of its services. What could be more normal?

The problem is that

It’s a mandatory fee, whether you use these services or not.
This concerns services that are usually free in other hotels
Resort fees are not included in the price displayed at the time of booking.

In other words:

Monsieur Smith goes to a Sheraton. He booked his room at 200 euros a night. Here he uses the swimming pool, gym and beach. In the end, he’ll pay 200 euros a night.

This same Mr. Smith goes to a Sheraton located in a very touristy area, and he goes to a Sheraton which, according to its location and services, has been declared a resort. First, in some cases, the difference between a hotel and a resort is hard to grasp, but it’s another matter. He books a stay at 200 euros a night.

Whether or not he uses the pool or gym, whether or not he goes to the beach, he will be charged a resort fee of, say, 25 euros per day. Fees not mentioned at time of booking. In the end, his bill will show his 200 euros per night plus 25 euros multiplied by the number of nights.

You’ll understand why it’s so difficult for customers to accept, and we’ve already explained why resort fees are the bane of the hotel industry.

Where do resorts fees come from?

As their name suggests, they were historically used to cover the costs of large resorts offering superior services to standard hotels: swimming pools, deckchairs, beaches, etc.

But that was true 30 years ago! Today, not only do many hotels offer the same services as resorts, but certain hotels are proclaimed resorts as soon as they were located in a leisure or spa destination and had a beach or swimming pool.

So much so that we’ve even seen the emergence of “destination fees”, “cleaning fees” and other ways of “artificially” and totally arbitrarily increasing the customer’s bill by charging for services that would otherwise be free. A bit like when an airline decides to charge you for snacks, normally free, on board, but then decides to charge you even if you don’t eat!

In short, resort fees are a way of charging customers for a service that should be free, even if they don’t use it.

Whether or not we found them justified at first, resort fees have become a means :

to attract customers to hotels by not displaying the real price
to increase hotel profitability by charging for theoretically free services.

For loyalty program members who use their points to pay for a stay, the resort fee remains extra and in some cases is 50 euros or more per night!

Marriott sued over resort fees decides to comply

Let’s be clear: all hotels and hotel chains charge resort fees, but fortunately for us European tourists, this practice remains marginal outside the United States.

However, we are going to talk about Marriott because, like other chains, it has been sued by customers and, for the first time, has decided to make amends and change its practices.

In an settlement reached with the courts, the hotelier decided to display the amount of its resorts fees at the time of booking, making things more transparent for the customer.

The end of resort fees? Are you kidding?

Some were quick to see this as a precedent, and to assert that resort fees would disappear. We’d like to think so, but that’s not at all what Marriott’s settlement tells us!

Marriott was not sued for the existence of resort fees, but for the fact that they were not known at the time of booking, and that customers discovered them when they paid their bill.

Marriott simply replied “no problem, we’ll display these amounts so that customers can make informed reservations”.

This is a good thing for the customer, who will be able to compare comparable prices and won’t discover at the end of his week’s vacation that he’s been charged $350 in unforeseen costs but it doesn’t change anything : hotels will continue to charge you $50 a day for the right to use their pool and go to their beach…even if you don’t go.

You’ll just be booking with the knowledge that you’re paying twice for the same service.

Bottom line

Following a complaint, Marriott announced that its resort fees would be displayed at the time of booking, so that customers would know the true price of their stay.

But in the end, this doesn’t answer the real problem, which is the legality of the practice itself... but that’s not what the courts were asked to rule on.

Image : Resort fees by Rawpixel.com via Shutterstock