Over the past year I’ve gone on a number of business trips. Where have the minibars all gone? When I used to travel 20 years ago, there were always minibars. Now there are NEVER any. This hotel also has no soda machine! And it is a quite nice hotel.
Is this part of the USA’s neo-Puritanism? Or do corporations have special boozeless rooms for business travel?
One, many still do have them.
Two, even charging huge markups, they still don’t make (much? any?) money and keeping them stocked is a pain.
Three, they compete with the bar/cafe/restaurant/cafe/etc.
Last time I saw any, it was at The Hotel @ Mandalay Bay*. I have stayed in many other hotels since then, and no mini-bars. The Mini-fridge, the microwave, etc have all taken over.
I only ever see them in Vegas anymore, but to me that’s fine. For business travel, I’d much rather have a fridge and a microwave in my room than a bunch of overpriced airplane shots.
I was just in a Holiday Inn this past weekend. No minibar, but yes a Pepsi (and snack) machine.
The last time I saw one was in a smaller casino in Vegas 5 or 6 years ago. I rearranged everything without using anything so maybe that is why hotels don’t have them much anymore.
I too haven’t seen a minibar in quite a few years. But I don’t remember the last time not seeing a soda machine in a motel/hotel/Holiday Inn, then again, I haven’t been looking.
Unless I were on an expense account (and frankly, even then), I’d never waste the money on minibar stuff unless I were already completely hammered. I’ll hit the 7-11 instead, and get a whole fifth of vodka and some snacks for my $20, instead of two airplane bottles and some macadamia nuts.
Maybe there aren’t enough wasteful people in this economy to make a typical minibar setup profitable.
Mid-range business oriented hotels I’ve been in in recent years have a little “snack bar” in the lobby, though good luck finding the fabled jar of macadamia nuts…
Also, people take things out of the mini-bar, don’t report it, check out and are gone. If the hotel tries to charge them later they dispute it and there is little the hotel can do except eat the loss. It has probably gotten to the point where many hotels have decided it’s just not worth it.
As others have said, mini-bars are expensive to maintain and a pain-in-the-ass for hotel. Our hotel got rid of mini-bars about 5 years ago; by then they were a money-sink for the hotel rather than a profit centre. And quite frankly no one chooses hotel A over hotel B just because hotel A has a mini-bar.
We had 1.25 full-time staff solely doing daily mini-bar inventory and stocking. Front desk staff were spending time signing mini-bar keys in and out and dealing with disputes over consumption. Turn-over on many items was so low that there was tonnes of wasted product. Any break-ins or lost keys would mean expensive repairs or replacements and the costs could rarely be recovered from the guests.
It’s kind of a vicious spiral since most of your costs are fixed and as fewer people purchase items from the mini-bar the higher the prices have to rise to even cover costs, which further drives down sales. By the end gross sales revenue wasn’t even coming close to covering product cost, let alone labour and equipment.
Yeah, I’ve seen the rise of “mini stores” off the lobby in various hotel chains lately. For me they’re not as convenient as vending machines for late night snack attacks. The thing about buying stuff from a vending machine is you don’t have to be particularly presentable (or sober). OTOH, it’s a pain in the butt sometimes when the machines aren’t working or they don’t accept dollar bills.
We had one (Mariott Camelback) recently where if you removed an item it was immediately, electronically logged to your bill. My kid held something up to show me how overpriced it was, which then necessitated having to call the desk to explain.
Or, less high-tech, they go through the garbage.
Which reminds me of my unintentional run-in with a minibar (well, mini-fridge) that still peeves me to this day. 
I was staying in Washington DC for a business meeting, in a club – a real, old-fashioned London-style club in the midst of the embassies near Dupont Circle. (Someone in our DC office was a member, so out-of-town attendees could stay as his guests.) One day of the meeting, I was a little hungry as I was walking from the Metro station to the club, but I knew the mini-fridge was bloody expensive, so I stopped at a drugstore and bought a candy bar and a 20-oz diet soda to enjoy that evening in my room. Well, when check-out came, there was an additional $8.86 on the bill. :mad: Yes, I remember that specific number even though this incident was in 2000 – $8.86 for (1) a soda and candy bar that (2) I HAD ALREADY PAID FOR ELSEWHERE!! I had a train to catch, so I didn’t want to dicker over the bill. I planned to dispute the bill in person the next time I was in DC. However, best-laid-plans and all that, I haven’t been back since. :smack:
TL;DR: the precise opposite of what R.P. McMurphy mentioned. 
I know minibars are expensive but like blondebear said, sometimes you just want a glass of wine or something while you are getting ready for bed, and having to go downstairs to the bar is not convenient. Oh well. I guess in theory I could have room service bring something up but that’s kind of decadent for me, just for a drink.
Even worse, people open bottles of clear liquors, drink them, then refill with tap water. By the time it’s discovered, there is no way to recover the loss. The last hotel I went to (a Wyndham in NYC) had also done away with individual bottles of shampoo, etc., and had only one bar of hand soap, which was for the sink. Instead, they have dispensers of soap, shampoo and conditioner mounted to the shower wall.
Last time I stayed in a hotel with a minibar was in Brussels on a stag weekend. I remember that a Snickers from the minibar cost more than a lap dance.
I just spent three weeks in a Holiday Inn. There was still the minibar fridge, but it was empty. Instead the lobby café sold various “minibar packages.” They were reasonably priced in Thai Baht.
Another thing that seems to be disappearing are room safes. During a long trip last spring we never saw one. On a more recent trip, there was a safe but the lock had been removed. (So it basically was just a clunky end table.)
With a convenient storage compartment! (Which some end tables have, yes, but not all.)