6 hotel trends disappear from tubs on new charges

NEW YORK – pump bottle on the shower wall or individual shampoos and creams you can take home? Luxurious bath for a self-indulgent bath or no bath at all? A friendly greeting from a well-informed local or a code is sent electronically, which will open the door hotel room with no human interaction at check-in at any time?

Here are some details about sex hotel trends bubbling up in the industry right now, and how they affect your stay.

Increased fees: your hotel bill can contain any unpleasant surprises. Not only the usual $ 20-a-day resort and amenity fee that you pay if you use the tennis courts and swimming pool complex, but how about a mandatory $ 12 cleaning surcharge or fee to store your luggage in the lobby?

Total fees and surcharges collected by the American hotels are anywhere from $ 1.7 billion in 2010 to a record 1.8 billion in 2011, according to new research from Bjorn Hanson, dean at New York University Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality and Sports Management. Hanson recommends that consumers ask when will a tax rate for a hotel what if all the necessary charges will be added to the bill. If you book online, you may have to hunt around the listing to see what can be added to the stated price in addition to taxes.

Lobbying as social hubs: Colorful chairs, free Internet and trendy cocktail bars and coffee helps to turn a once sterile hotel lobby in social hubs. Hanson said while baby boomers may see the lobby as a place to meet at 6:00 sharp before going to a predetermined location restaurant younger travelers prefer to gather more informally in the lobby, hang out for a while, hang out and take their time to choose where they will be spend the evening. They can check e-mail, go online using a mobile phone or iPhone to look for food recommendations, or try some snacks and drinks are readily available from the lobby or bar market.

Hilton's new home2 Suites Extended Stay brand designed their lobby groups with an eye toward bringing business travelers out of their rooms. Tables and colorful couches offer a place for informal meetings, as well as areas where anyone can plop down with a laptop and a drink rather than sit alone in a room watching TV.

Disappearing tubs: If you book a suite, get your next stay in a hotel room does not offer the luxury of a bath. Many newly built hotel has showers only. Marriott, for example, are "advisors our newly built hotel to put shower in 75 percent of the rooms and baths in 25 percent of the rooms," according to Marriott spokeswoman Laurie Goldstein. "Our research shows that business travelers prefer showers to baths, but families that flexibility in a bathtub and a shower."

So if you are traveling with small children who will need a bath before bed, call in advance to ensure your room has a bath.

Pump machines: The advent of pump machines in the hotel bathroom is good and bad news for the people obsessed with the little bottles of shampoo and individually wrapped bars of soap that has a beloved comfort for decades.

The good news: If you need more shampoo than can be as little as a half-ounce of the little plastic boxes, you can pump as much as you want from the union. No more fighting with your roommate over the small bottle or run to the front desk before 06:00 a shower to get another.

You may also feel greener if you use the pump. Nothing more to add plastic disposable items to the waste.

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The bad news: What happens if you just love the little bottles? The hand lotion is the perfect size to slip in your handbag, and if you have leftover shampoo, is the container small enough to get through airport security. Or what if you find pump dispensers unattractive? Some people think they are unhealthy and prefer to use an unopened single soap or shampoo.

Fortunately, Hanson said hotels have switched to pump dispensers are often free bottles or wrapped soaps on request at reception.

Check in on line: Who needs to wait in line at the front desk to check in? Some of Starwood's Aloft hotel offers "Smart Check-in" for the Starwood Preferred Guest members program. Members are sent a key card with radio frequency identification, and the date of intended stay, is a text message sent to the guest's mobile phone with a room number. Upon arrival, the guest proceeds to the room, and the key card to open the door.

The technology is in place aloft in Brooklyn and Harlem in New York City, Lexington, Massachusetts, Dallas, Jacksonville, Florida, and London.

Hanson says fully electronic check-in technology adapted to the hospitality industry very slowly, but also because it becomes more widespread, he expects most hotels will still have staff in the lobby to welcome guests and provide other services – if only to satisfy a older generation who prefer human interaction to a touch screen.

Loca Would options: localization would be and hyper-local trend that has taken over the food in the world is fast becoming de rigueur in the hotel industry, especially at high-end and boutique properties where chefs grow their own herbs and also receive their own hives. W San Francisco in September, a local beekeeper, Jack Ip, install hives on a rooftop with a goal of eventually producing honey for use in the hotel's menu.

In New York City, sponsors the London NYC hotel in Lower Manhattan, a Farmers Market from May to November in an arcade next to the hotel where the produce, the bread and other goods sold by the farmers and other suppliers. The Andaz also sell freshly squeezed juices and sandwiches on the market, and customers are hotel guests and neighborhood.

"Guests will come down and mingle with the residents," said Andaz spokeswoman Rachel Harrison. "This allows them to feel they are really part of the neighborhood. We want guests to feel like locals."

Hotel Indigo, which has 30 properties in the United States and eight other world-wide, also partners with local suppliers and vendors to showcase seasonal local dishes, like a barbecue pork sandwich on the menu at the Hotel Indigo in Asheville, NC, and a local crafts beer called Sweetwater served at the Hotel Indigo in Atlanta.

Hotel Indigo is also working with celeb chef Curtis Stone in a contest called "Locals know best – the dish on the dish," where the audience is invited to nominate favorite dishes from local restaurants. The contest runs through October 15 and nominations can be submitted via Facebook on http://www.facebook.com/hotelindigo. You can see the way September 30 and give him your recommendation in person at an event at the Hotel Indigo in Chelsea, 127 W. 28th St., from noon to 1:30

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material May not be published, broadcast, rewrite or redistributed.

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