You can blame us Brits for that term. The ‘continent’, to us, is and always will be Mainland Europe, where they traditionally ate a lighter, uncooked breakfast (coffee and a croissant) as opposed to the Full English.
Snap darnnit
The economic principle behind this is bundling, selling a group of products as one package deal.
It happens in lots of industries and, when done well, produces benefits for both buyer and seller.
The buyer benefits because they don’t have to coordinate the various services. Sure, you might like to go out for breakfast, but you probably wouldn’t want to arrange for your own maids, morning newspaper delivery, ice delivery, etc. every time you go somewhere. The hotel provides a package of goods that might not be the best, but they’re good enough.
The seller benefits because it lets them capture more of the surplus with customers who value the parts of the bundle differently.
Imagine there are two people, one who values the room at $100, but is going to go out for breakfast, so values the breakfast at $0. Another values the room at $90, but is traveling on a schedule or with kids or just plain wants to have a bacon-induced heart attack, and values the breakfast at $10.
If the hotel were to sell the room and breakfast separately, they’re either going to get less than customer 1 was willing to pay (and make less money), or they’re going to price the room above what customer 2 is willing to pay (and he’s going to go elsewhere).
If I’m traveling, I’m likely paying for every meal. It’s nice to have a “free” option, even if it’s just bad coffee, a banana and cereal, so I can start my day without having “eat out” for breakfast as well.
I can imagine that if you’re traveling with kids, this option becomes even more of a time and money-saver.
Any place that serves uniformly yellow scrambled eggs is all right by me. Throw in make-your-own-waffle and I’m more than satisfied. A hotel breakfast lets me fill up and gives me energy for sight-seeing or whatever. I can’t see the downside.
Most hotels are setup for business travellers, everybody else is a bonus. Business travellers value convenience above all else and a “free” breakfast is convenient. They do not care about the price, the person is not paying for it.
Same reason hotels have those overpriced shops, buy here and now rather than find a place in a strange city. When you are in Dubai and your luggage is in Djibouti, and you have a business meeting in the morning, buying a shirt and tie from the hotel shops is convenient, even if they cost 3 times more. grumble screw Emirates Airlinegrumble.
I’ve always selected the “business traveler” class of hotel that offers breakfast, if one is an option. With four people, a stop for breakfast can easily cost $40 or more, so paying somewhat less than that over a cheaper place is well worth it. And, I rarely find that places of equivalent quality and convenience are any cheaper; the brekkie place is often among the least expensive.
The food is usually “roadside diner” quality or better. Sometimes it’s skimpy, but I’ve often had several choices of main dish and every side I could think of, along with coffee, juice and the small stuff.
If you’re a nickel-and-dime traveler who stays in the cheapest Motel Six and grabs a McMuffin in the morning, they may not be the best choice. But if you’re a mid-range business or family traveler and shop a little carefully, places with breakfast are a huge money, time and hassle saver.
The last hotel I stayed at up in a resort area had a fine breakfast, certainly nothing fancy, but I didn’t have a car to go driving around looking for something ‘better’. There was plenty of dry cereal, oatmeal in packets, pastries, yogurts, bananas and oranges, milk, juice, tea, and of course plenty of coffee. I don’t eat breakfast anyway, just coffee, but my companions met down there for a bite and were well pleased to stoke up for a day of sightseeing…Another hotel had a big hot breakfast buffet, trays of scrambled eggs and bacon, pancakes, waffles, hash browns, all that. Most of us after a wedding had awesome hangovers, so some ate plenty and some took a juice and coffee back to their rooms with them.
I believe the contrast was between English breakfast which is eggs and continental breakfast which is coffee and pastry.
it’s a no brainer for me.Eating in the hotel is easy.
Going out of the hotel means a least an hour of your time wasted in the morning.
The hotel food isn’t top-chef quality–but it’s better than what I make for myself at home, and there’s a LOT more of it, all spread out in front of you.
Sure, you could ask at the desk where the nearest Denny’s is…then put on your winter coat and get stuck in traffic going there, while your tummy is rumbling from hunger…Then you order one plate of eggs and hash browns,one glass of orange juice.
Or you can take the elevator to breakfast wearing a t-shirt.
Pack your plate with fresh rolls, fruit, several kinds of cheese, a bigger serving of eggs than you get at Denny’s, and an unlimited refill of your juice glass.
Then go back up to your room, brush your teeth, grab your coat and head out for the day- full of energy and a satisfied feeling in your belly.
What’s not to like?
Yep - ‘Continental breakfast’ in the UK may indicate a variety of different things* - but specifically, it indicates ‘not a cooked, hot breakfast’.
*Typically:
Croissants, bread rolls, jams, butter, coffee
or
the above, plus sliced cold ham and cheese
or
some combination of the above, plus Danish pastries
Don’t get me started on ‘Full English’. It’s not ‘full’ unless it includes black pudding.
Whenever I have been traveling for work, I have always appreciated a free hotel breakfast. This is especially true if you’re working during a manufacturing plant shutdown. Busy manufacturing plants run 24/7/365 and only shut down for a few days to maybe a week once every few years. All maintenance and upgrade items have to be done in that short amount of time, so we typically go into the plant around 6 am and get back to the hotel around 9 or 10 at night.
Having a free hotel breakfast, even a crappy continental breakfast, means that much less time spent getting ready to go in the morning, so it’s a big benefit to me. If I had to spend an extra half an hour going out for breakfast somewhere, that would just end up being half an hour of less sleep for me.
I’ve stayed in a few hotels in Europe in which the breakfast was the equivalent of an unlimited seven-course dinner. Especially, one in Amsterdam and one in Vienna. I’d totally pig out on breakfast, and not need to eat for the rest of the day, except for a very light supper. Totally worth it.
I take advantage of hotel breakfasts all the time. The selections are usually limited but I can usually find something. If they have biscuits and gravy/hash browns/sausage I’ll go for that. Otherwise I’ll go for a bagel and cream cheese. Even if I’m not hungry for breakfast I’ll grab an apple or some bread/peanut butter/jelly for a sandwich later on.
I’ve often wondered how long you could get away with just stopping at random hotels in the morning and freeloading on their continental breakfast.
I’ve stayed at hotels around 100 times and the number of times I’ve wanted ice and maid service could be counted in the low single digits. I’ve never wanted the morning newspaper even before digital news was de rigueur, because they would invariably insult my intelligence by throwing USA Today at my doorstep, which I never read and was only an impediment to my walking.
But I do appreciate the bundled breakfast. It probably is cheaper to cook for everyone than to not get efficiencies of scale and to worry about charging people.
Because if they didn’t, where else would you ever get the chance to play with one of those strange wire-rack-conveyor-belt toasters?
I always assumed that maid service was meant for the hotel’s benefit rather than the patron’s, to assure that their rooms don’t become too dirty. Of course I’ve only rarely stayed longer than three person-days, at the end of which the trash does need taking out and the towels sometimes need refreshing, but the vast majority of the time that level of daily visiting is completely unnecessary and in fact makes me nervous that I will get stolen from (as if inside job thieves will care if it is “my day” to get service or not) and wondering if I remembered to place a “do not disturb” sign on my door so I won’t get a knock at 10 am during which I might or might not still be in bed.
Part of being a guest, from BnB’s and the ilk, breakfast was/is a host’s obligation. The basic free breakfast of the hotel is a accommodation to that.
Kids? Hell, I need it for my parents.
Usually once a summer, my parents will fly in from west Texas and my brother & I up from Austin to go to a couple of Rangers baseball games. We stay at a nearby hotel. If they didn’t have coffee, juice, bagels, and waffles available at 7am, he’d be calling us at the ass crack of dawn. “Let’s go get some coffee!” I see no virtue in waking up four hours before anything is open when you’re on vacation. Furthermore, I am not the brightest ray of sunshine first thing in the morning. It is better than I am left alone to take a dip in the pool or work out in the gym before socializing.
Which brings me to the fact that those buffets are pretty handy if you want to grab a banana or some peanut butter toast before working out and THEN sitting down to a breakfast.
You would have to be an early riser.