The Thursday, September 14, issue of the Wall Street Journal reports on yet another
consumer anomaly . . .as if we didn't have enough holes in the
once-munster-but-now-swiss-cheese body of economic wisdom.
This week's anomaly of choice: The hotel mini-bar
As reported:
"Dave Hofert wouldn't think twice about slapping down $7 for a drink at the hotel bar.
But spending anything close to that on an oversized box of M&M's or a miniature bottle
of Jack Daniels from the hotel-room refrigerator makes him crazy.
"I just don't even go there," says Mr. Hofert, a business development manager at Sun
Microsystems Inc. It isn't that the $5 sack of designer potato chips would cause
trouble on the business-trip expense report. "It's the principle -- you feel like
you're getting ripped off ... a hotel room beer will cost around $4 to $5 for a Bud --
and all I can think of is 'I could go buy a six-pack for $3.99.' "
Business travelers will shell out double-digit bills for a half grapefruit and coffee
at a business breakfast without blinking an eye. But they seem to morph into penny
pinchers at the very sight of a hotel-room minibar.
"There's these little psychological quirks we all have and minibars are one with me,"
says Neal Boortz, a radio talk-show host in Atlanta. "When you go to a hotel bar
there's a level of service and atmosphere. When you walk into your room and open a
cheap refrigerator, there is no atmosphere and there is no service and you wonder
'what in the hell am I paying for here?'" For beleaguered road warriors, the minibar
represents just one more way to be fleeced. "It just grates on you," says Mr. Hofert.
Fasten your seat belts -- it's going to get worse. Minibars are modernizing.
Frequent fliers who have fooled the system in the past by taking something and then
replacing it at the corner store for a fraction of the cost might want to think twice
next time a Kit Kat craving strikes. That old bait-and-switch tactic won't fly with
the new generation of automated, infrared minibar systems.
You heard right. Infrared. Connected to the front desk.
Minibar Systems, a supplier that has installed minibars in 360,000 hotel rooms
world-wide, introduced a model with infrared sensors two years ago. The AutoClassic,
which automatically charges the hotel room when a product is lifted from the minibar
for over 10 seconds, has so far been installed in 20 U.S. hotels, including the San
Jose Fairmont, Holiday Inn Wall Street and the Venetian in Las Vegas.
The systems may seem sneaky to some, but the fact is hotels can't rely on guests
telling the truth about their in-room snacking habits if they really want to make
minibars profitable. After all, hotel guests have been known to refill Evian bottles
and even miniature vodka bottles with tap water to avoid being charged.
"The problem with the old honor system is there was a lot of shrinkage -- up to 18% of
things wouldn't get paid for," says Richard Williams, president of food and beverage
services at HVS International, a hospitality consulting company in Rockville, Md. "The
automated systems bring shrinkage down to 2%." The infrared systems are much more
expensive to install, but they also eliminate the labor expense of hotel staff having
to physically check rooms for minibar usage.
And while the majority of hotel-room minibars in the U.S. still operate on the honor
system, infrared systems are the wave of the future, says Mr. Williams.
Put off by high-tech junk food guards? The AutoClassic may be Big-Brotherish, but it's
a lot more approachable than the old Robobar, a vending-machine model that requires
hotel guests to punch in a key and lift a tab to get a product, which is then
automatically billed to the room. "The vending-machine style is on its way out because
it adds a barrier to the customer," says Kevin Ryder, marketing manager at Minibar
Systems. "You want it to look like you can just grab it."
"Grabbing it" is what minibars are all about. Stephen Roussakis, projects coordinator
at the Cancer Research Society in Montreal, doesn't consider himself a junk-food
junkie. Still, when he's traveling and he sees something in the minibar that looks
"enticing," he says, "I'll take it."
"It's like an emergency thing ... like when [there's a fire], you break the glass."
He doesn't always indulge, but he always opens the door, just to see what's inside.
"It's like, at home, you think about cost, but on vacation you don't." And that sense
of escapism is no different for a road warrior, he says.
"When I first started traveling a lot, I worried about expense reports. ... I've
gotten over that." Sure, he'd rather pay less, but nowadays he has no problem with
overpriced in-room binging. "I feel ripped off paying $7 for popcorn at the movies
too," he says. "But I buy it anyway."
[END]
New York, NY
