I notice that almost every hotel seems to offer a ‘free’ breakfast (which you are paying for indirectly). Why is this? I don’t see the attraction, I prefer to go out, since usually the ‘free’ breakfast is low quality, since the hotels can skimp on what is forcibly paid for by the tenant.
Same reason they offer “free” HBO, room safes, and instant coffee: perceived value.
Convenience- when we traveled with small children, it was awfully nice to be able to take them downstairs while one of us was showering and dressing, and get some breakfast in them. Traveling was disruptive enough, without having to wait an extra long time as we got ourselves showered, dressed, and ready to go out. It also gave us something to do with an early riser, while the other child was still sleeping.
Food was generally low quality for the free breakfasts, but some cereal and milk or a yogurt was good enough. Honestly, most hotels we stay in now don’t offer free breakfast, so I don’t think it’s all hotels. It’s all hotels of a certain type.
The short (and obvious) answer is because some of their customers find it to be of value.
Not only is it “free”, but it’s right there, right now. Hungry? In a hurry? that makes it harder to resist. Depending on my schedule, sometimes I’ll take advantage of it, even though, yes, the hot food is typically of lesser quality than what I might find at a sit-down restaurant. “Free” and “fast” can be powerful attractors, even if “free” just means “you’ve already paid for it, whether you wanted it or not.”
Also, a hotel’s breakfast buffet often includes fresh fruit, cereal, yogurt and other items that may not be readily available at nearby greasy-spoon restaurants.
You yourself may not see the attraction, but surely you’ve noticed other hotel patrons taking advantage of the on-site breakfast as you passed through the lobby enroute to the restaurant of your choice. Bottom line? Everybody’s got different needs/tastes/sensibilities, and hotels have a pretty good grasp on what their customers want.
If you travel mostly for vacations, then the hotel breakfasts could seem unnecessary. But if you travel for work or events, having a simple breakfast in the hotel can save a lot of time. If you’re in a strange city and need to be somewhere first thing in the morning, you don’t want to waste a lot of time trying to find a breakfast restaurant, get seated, served, etc.
Even on vacations, it works great when you have kids. Rather than trying to get everyone dressed and out the door to a restaurant, you can just go down and get them something to eat. And the kids usually love it anyway, regardless of the quality.
Two words: unlimited bacon. A fresh tray of hotel breakfast buffet bacon is one of life’s great pleasures, if you try not to think too hard about atherosclerosis.
There are a couple reasons:
- Traveling with children. It’s easier than finding a place out.
- Traveling for work. Some people will have to shuttle to work and this might be the only place they can get breakfast.
- Staying in the hotel for a conference.
- General convenience.
- Cost.
I travel abroad a couple times a year and around the US about 3 or 4 times a year. I almost always check “free breakfast” when doing a hotel search. Part of it is because I’m not a big breakfast fan anyways. When I’m at home, I usually just have a bagel and that’s it. Traveling, I’ll hit the cheese and meat tray. The price difference between a hotel with and without breakfast is generally negligible.
I’ve noticed that. Hampton Inn (a mid-price Hilton brand aimed at businesspeople) offers free breakfast, but Courtyard by Marriott did not (although I thought they were roughly at the same level).
And on a couple of business trips, I’ve found the free hotel breakfast so dreary that I went out to McDonald’s or Denny’s for breakfast (and then I couldn’t expense the cost, because I skipped the free stuff).
When I was a little kid, the advertising verbiage seemed to be “Free Continental Breakfast”. To my way of thinking, continents are pretty large, so they must have quite a spread laid out for us hungry folks. When I discovered it was more along the lines of coffee and donuts, I was a bit miffed.
The food is always pretty good at the chain we stay with. Why go out for a meal? We’ll be doing that at lunch & dinner anyway.
I thought like you as well. I figure “continental” is a hoity-toity way of saying “French” and the French know nothing of a normal breakfast, let alone a true American Breakfast (inset waving flag here) with eggs and bacon and biscuits and bacon and pancakes and sausage and even grits. Oh and bacon.
I enjoy them because they are convenient especially because they are better than fast food breakfast food, while around as good as Denny’s and the like: their entrees are less fresh than the diner-type places but you can have bagels and cereal as well (at least at Hampton Inn and Embassy Suites.)
Sure, the breakfast ain’t free but it’s definitely an incentive over other hotels. Say 2(or more) hotels are $169/night but the Hampton has free breakfast included, I’m staying at the Hampton.
I have 3 young children so the free breakfast, Wifi, and pool all are pretty much necessities.
…and free swimming pool, exercise room, free Wi-fi, mini-fridges and/or microwaves in the room, etc. etc. Sure it costs the hotel something to offer these things, but less (presumably, in their estimation) than it would cost them in lost business to not offer them.
(ETA: Posted before I saw the post above, which makes sort of the same point.)
Hotel breakfasts do vary in quality, but (IME) surprisingly often they offer, at least, more than the bare minimum they could get away with offering.
Never heard “Continental Breakfast: A roll in bed with honey?” 
Actually, the French are as miffed by that lousy breakfast as everybody else. It just seems to be a marketing way of saying “crappy breakfast”.
It helps you get your mate out of the bed because, hey, the coffee is done at 10 a.m.
Well I must have been at that imaginative age, where words (and advertising) take on a life of their own. Good thing I didn’t order 7 foot Polaris Submarine from the back of the comic book.
I distinctly remember excitedly running down to the lobby expecting a huge layout, like at a school or church function. Oh Boy!!
There must be some mistake… Where is everyone? Has it been moved to another location that has more room possibly? Then, I noticed a forlorn looking single table with a few danish rolls and the like. I was crestfallen.
I was always under the impression that the term “Continental breakfast” was invented by the Brits as a contrast with the “full English breakfast”, and that we Americans adopted the term later. But the sources that are up on Google Books are inconclusive; the very earliest usages of the term are from the UK, but there are some pretty early ones from the USA as well.
Kids schmids! We grew the kids up and we still go to the free breakfast hotels. The Mrs. doesn’t much care for breakfast and it’s my favorite meal. Most places have at least some eggs bacon gravy or something hot. If not I can usually improvise with a boiled egg and bagel sandwich.
One hotel in my daughter’s city has a breakfast and dining area so good that when we stayed there I’ve paid for her guest breakfast a few times.