I’m going on a business trips, so it got me thinking - My last two stays were at higher-end hotels. At both locations, there was no included breakfast buffet. At one of them, wi-fi was an extra charge.
When I get a choice while travelling, I pick mid-range hotels like Hampton Inn and Holiday Inn Express, who have free breakfasts and wifi. In fact, I’ve stayed at cheapie hotels like Super 8 and gotten at least the buffet.
Is this a unique business model? Of course, restaurants and restaurant buffets arguably have a similar relationship, but the difference in quality between say, Golden Corral and Texas Roadhouse is a lot more dramatic than that between Hampton Inn and Marriott.
Supposedly it has to do with the fact that people who stay at mid-upper range hotels are more likely to be staying on someone else’s dime (usually a company they work for), so the person staying there will not have a problem paying extra for things they get for free at cheaper hotels (buffets, wifi, etc) since it isn’t their money. Lower and mid range hotels are ones where the person staying is the one actually paying the bills, so their is an incentive to add extra perks to make them think it is a good idea to stay there over a hotel w/o those perks.
So if that is the business model, any model where the low and mid range items are paid for by the consumer, but the upper-mid range or upper range items are paid for by someone else but used by the consumer should in theory have the same business model.
health care maybe? People on high deductible health plans pay for the low and mid range health services, but higher cost health services are paid by insurance.
Watches, maybe? Spend big bucks and you only get one that tells time, but for a lot less you can have one with a stopwatch and an alarm and maybe even a calculator.
What is that business model called, where you spend extra for a ‘prestige’ item that has less functionality?
Example: You can buy a used Toyota Camry with an excellent ride, good reliability and tons of features, or you can spend a bunch more money and buy a 1940s car with a bumpy ride that breaks down all the time because the latter is a prestigious antique.
Antiques and prestigious/status items (expensive watches that use mechanical methods to tell time rather than quartz) seem like items that fit the OPs description too.
Perhaps the reason that the higher-end hotels don’t have breakfast buffets as do the mid-price chains like Hampton Inn is that a breakfast buffet isn’t very upscale. A really upscale breakfast would be one that’s prepared especially for you.
I disagree that you get less. In an upscale hotel room I often get nicer sheets and towels, better toiletries, more comfortable bed, and more space in the room. The quality of those breakfast buffets are low enough that I consider a fair trade.
I do agree that in this day and age free wireless should be pro forma.
I read somewhere that the new trend is for basic WiFi to be free, but for there to be an upcharge if you need a fast connection (perhaps for streaming Netflix content).
High class hotels have lots of stuff in addition to rooms, such as meeting space. You get this free if you book enough rooms. Also, large buyers of rooms get lots of amenities, like Wifi or even free parking, included in the deal. Lots of high class hotels now give free Wifi if you are a member of their frequent stayer club.
Women’s shoes are another example. As the “designer” price goes through the roof, there seems to be a contrary decrease in the ability to provide even a modicum of padding or support to the shoe. There’s a sort of competitive edge to the whole thing, as if wearing painful shoes made one more feminine or desirable somehow.
It’s one of those things that many women think they are doing because men like it, when in fact most them would far rather she wore something appropriate but comfortable.
Beyond a certain high-mid-range price point, the more expensive the shoe the less likely it is to last as well. It’s true for men also; often the really expensive “sportin’” shoes are quite frail and literally fall apart after a few wearings. Whereas the mid-price ones will last a decade with proper care and the occasional re-soling.
I have noticed the same thing about hotels, but with the pricier hotel you may be paying in part for a better location. For instance, you might be in the heart of the city’s business district or close to major tourist attractions while the cheaper hotel with breakfast buffet might be out by the airport.
Fanciest hotel I ever stayed at charged $20 a night for wifi, but the breakfast buffet had tons of fresh bacon and fresh melon and other expensive food, plus there was a happy hour for clients with free booze. I definitely figured it was for business travelers who made their own reservations: the hotel figured the bosses would pay for wifi but not booze, and the business travelers would therefore be lured by free booze but not free wifi.
It’s not that the expensive hotels don’t have WiFi or breakfast buffets or whatever-- They do, you just have to pay more for them. But this is of a piece with all the rest of what the hotel has, including the basics: Both hotels have beds also, and you pay more for use of a bed at the expensive hotel.
Aside from the overall cost being higher at the more expensive hotel (that’s what “more expensive” means, after all), the only difference is that at the more expensive hotel, you have the option to itemize the services you receive: You can choose to pay more and get the WiFi, or you can choose to go without.
And of course there are differences in quality as well, and it’s up to you to decide whether the quality is worth it. WiFi is a prime example, here: Most places (hotels or otherwise) that offer “free WiFi” just stick a consumer home-sized router in a space ten times the size with twenty times as many users, leading to a service that is technically what they promised, but which is so slow that in practice it might as well not exist. There’s a big difference between that and a proper commercial WiFi setup that can give all users a reliable, consistent high-speed connection.
Electrical outlets. It’s getting better, but every other hotel stay, I have to unplug the useless alarm clock, unplug the bedside light, and then move the bed or the nightstand to find another outlet. I bought a travel power strip, but half the time I forget it at home.
But what you’re paying for is 1/365th of the annual cost of ownership of that space. It doesn’t cost them nothing when it’s empty. It costs them a certain amount in fixed and service costs even if it’s full every night. Hotels are not, typically, high profit operations. That’s WHY they used to pad phone costs and now gouge for WiFi, minibars, spa access etc. The rooms alone are barely profitable.
While this is a real issue, ironically there is also the problem of too much light in the evening. I like my bedroom absolutely pitch dark, and this is hard to achieve in hotels. There are often many small light sources - the TV’s red light, sometimes a nightlight in the bathroom, the smoke detector, shades that don’t completely cover windows. And the big one in the last few years: alarm clocks that glow.
I spend two weeks a month in hotels, and my routine is to go around unplugging or obscuring everything I can.
As for the WiFi, it’s true that mostly high end hotels charge for it and cheaper ones don’t. Or if it is complimentary, there’s an obnoxious login process (looking at YOU Hilton properties!) that tries to upsell you into buying high-speed.
Not necessarily. I’ve seen places where the Hampton Inn was around the same price as the Doubletree, but the end cost of the Doubletree would be more if you had breakfast there, and the Doubletree is the more high-end place.
Frack, yes. The increasing prevalence of making things glow has made it impossible to have a dark room. I’ve spent years trying to “de-glow” my house and there are just so many things that are not easily darkened and for which there is no non-glowing alternative. I’d like to pit manufacturers for having to massage consumer expectations by putting a “I’m here! I’m working! I’m useful! I’m worth the money you spent!” status or standby or hi-there LED on every damned thing that plugs in.
Hotel rooms take this to the limit and I’ve been in some where I could literally read - with aging eyes - by the light of alarm clocks, TV lights, smoke detectors, etc.
