Speaker 1: I guess what mango? What's that? Will? So In prep
Speaker 1: for this week's episode, I was reading about this hotel
Speaker 1: in Ireland. It's called Ashford Castle, and the big draw
Speaker 1: there is that there's an owl called Dingle. Mango doesn't
Speaker 1: make you want to stay there. I love the idea
Speaker 1: of a hotel, al I I feel like I need
Speaker 1: to hear more. Okay, well, apparently the hotel has this
Speaker 1: falconry school, so here's even more reason to go there.
Speaker 1: It's on the grounds right there, and the guests can
Speaker 1: take classes there with you know, you work with all
Speaker 1: kinds of birds when you do this, but Dingle is
Speaker 1: of course the star. To be clear, there are other
Speaker 1: birds there, but Dingle is the star. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: keep saying Dingle in. This is partially because he has
Speaker 1: a specialty. So if you're looking to get the proposal
Speaker 1: package there, they set you up with this nice cozy
Speaker 1: dinner by candle light, and at the end of the dinner,
Speaker 1: Dingle will swoop in and deliver your ring. How cool
Speaker 1: is this? I feel like that's the most Harry Potter
Speaker 1: proposal I've ever It's so awesome. But you know, this
Speaker 1: also made us wonder about hotels and all of the
Speaker 1: secrets around hotels, the little gimmicks hotels used to get
Speaker 1: guests in the door, and the tricks and codes that
Speaker 1: hotel employees use, and of course this mysterious society that
Speaker 1: so many top concierge is belonged to. So let's dig in.
Speaker 1: Hey there, podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Speaker 1: Will Pearson, and as always I'm joined by my good
Speaker 1: friend man Guesh Ticketer and on the other side of
Speaker 1: the soundproof glass showing off his vast collection of ill
Speaker 1: gotten hotel amenities. This is one of his stranger collections.
Speaker 1: That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. And you know,
Speaker 1: this is one of those times I do wish our
Speaker 1: listeners could see this, because every single inch of Tristan's desk,
Speaker 1: and I mean every single inch is just tiny bottles
Speaker 1: of shampoo and conditioner and lotions. And I actually don't
Speaker 1: think I've ever seen so many slightly different shades of
Speaker 1: beige and light green in my life. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like the world's most boring rainbow if you look at it.
Speaker 1: So I don't even want to Nobody has planned for
Speaker 1: all of this but you know one thing you won't
Speaker 1: find interest in collection, and that's toothpaste. And that's because
Speaker 1: hotels in the US aren't typically provide complimentary toothpaste like
Speaker 1: they do for soap, shampoo, and all those other bathroom staples.
Speaker 1: You know. I've noticed that there have been a couple
Speaker 1: of times where I've forgotten toothpaste and gone downstairs and
Speaker 1: they've given me the world like this should do the trick,
Speaker 1: or the world's smallest of toothpaste. Have you ever had
Speaker 1: this happen smaller than like the tip of your finger.
Speaker 1: It's so strange. But I've actually heard that hotels choose
Speaker 1: which amenities to offer based on market research. And you
Speaker 1: would think and hope that there would be a strong
Speaker 1: market for dental hygiene, but apparently most people aren't asking
Speaker 1: for toothpaste in their rooms, so hotels just don't bother
Speaker 1: stocking it. Yeah, So, I'd always figured that it was
Speaker 1: just because most people brought their own, but it turns
Speaker 1: out there's actually a more practical reason that hotels don't
Speaker 1: do this as well. Apparently toothpaste is more strictly regulated
Speaker 1: in the US and things like shampoo or soap, and
Speaker 1: in fact toothpaste is actually classified as a cosmetic and
Speaker 1: a drug since it usually contains fluoride, and the stricter
Speaker 1: regulations put on drug manufacturing means that toothpaste can cost
Speaker 1: I don't know, like or even more than other hygiene essentials.
Speaker 1: So you know, that's probably another reason why most hotels
Speaker 1: don't provide it. Okay, I actually never knew that, But
Speaker 1: that's exactly why we're doing this episode because you know,
Speaker 1: although the vast majority of us have stayed in a
Speaker 1: hotel at one time or another, the two of us
Speaker 1: within the past week, actually most of us, you know,
Speaker 1: we know very little about how a hotel actually runs.
Speaker 1: And that's probably because our culture has long since embraced
Speaker 1: the thinking of one of the hotel industry's pioneers, and
Speaker 1: that was Caesar Ritz now the Swiss hotel a famously
Speaker 1: claimed that quote people like to be served but invisibly,
Speaker 1: and so for the last hundred and fifty years, society
Speaker 1: is pretty much stuck to that maxim and that's, you know,
Speaker 1: for better or worse. But today we're we're going to
Speaker 1: peek behind the front desk and kind of pull back
Speaker 1: that disposable shower curtain to reveal some of the best
Speaker 1: kept secrets of hotels and their employees. Well, of course,
Speaker 1: uncover the dues and don'ts of things like room service,
Speaker 1: as well as some of the weirdest requests ever fielded
Speaker 1: by a hotel concierge. Plus, we'll get a better sense
Speaker 1: of the burdens of a hotel housekeeper and why you
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't use the glass cups in your hotel room.
Speaker 1: So where do you want to start, Mango? So I
Speaker 1: think before we get into the secrets, we should lay
Speaker 1: out a few basic facts about just how massive the
Speaker 1: hotel workforce truly is. So for starters, they're about fifty
Speaker 1: five thousand hotel properties in the US, which amounts to
Speaker 1: more than five million guest rooms in total, and over
Speaker 1: one billion people stay in a hotel for at least
Speaker 1: one night each year, which is about fifteen percent of
Speaker 1: the world's population. And to service all of these guests
Speaker 1: and the rooms they occupy, hotels employee about four point
Speaker 1: five million people in the US alone. So this includes
Speaker 1: things like desk clerks, hotel managers, housekeepers, bell boys. It
Speaker 1: takes a staggering amount of man or to keep even
Speaker 1: like a single hotel running smoothly. And according to the
Speaker 1: American Hotel and Lodging Association, which is where all these
Speaker 1: stats actually come from, a typical hotel with a hundred
Speaker 1: occupied rooms per night supports over two hundred fifty local
Speaker 1: jobs every year. Al Right, well, since hotels are such
Speaker 1: big employers, I think maybe the way we want to
Speaker 1: approach this is just kind of do a role by
Speaker 1: role dirt dishing on you know, each one of these
Speaker 1: if if that makes sense to you, yeah, I like
Speaker 1: that idea. So why don't we start with the front
Speaker 1: desk and this practice of walking a guest And this
Speaker 1: is when a hotel turns away a guest with a
Speaker 1: standing reservation because the hotel is mistakenly overbooked themselves. But
Speaker 1: the truth is that overbooking is rarely done by mistake.
Speaker 1: So the average no show rate for a hotel reservation
Speaker 1: is around ten percent each day, and hotels tried to
Speaker 1: book themselves to a hundred ten percent capacity whenever possible
Speaker 1: to account for these expected cancelations, and the hope is
Speaker 1: that the numbers will balance out and that every head
Speaker 1: will have a bed for the night. It's what hoteliers
Speaker 1: call a perfect cell. But the trouble is that sometimes
Speaker 1: too many people actually show up for the rooms they booked,
Speaker 1: and this is when someone gets walked. So this is
Speaker 1: somewhat similar to like when the airline's over book flights
Speaker 1: and they're looking for volunteers and all that. But you said,
Speaker 1: when somebody gets walked? So what what what does that
Speaker 1: mean exactly? Well, you know, the practice varies by hotel,
Speaker 1: but typically the desk agent will book the guest one
Speaker 1: night stay at a nearby hotel, usually on the company's dime.
Speaker 1: But again it depends on the hotel. Alright, so how
Speaker 1: do hotels choose who to walk Like? Is it based
Speaker 1: on how long you're staying or something else or what? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there are a few different considerations. So length
Speaker 1: of stay is one. So for example, like you're more
Speaker 1: likely to get walked if you're staying for just one night.
Speaker 1: Another consideration is whether or not you've stayed in the
Speaker 1: hotel before and how likely you seem to come back.
Speaker 1: And obviously if you're route to the staff or maybe
Speaker 1: even short tempered with a loved one in front of
Speaker 1: the staff, you probably up to your chances of getting walked.
Speaker 1: But honestly, the biggest determining factor of who gets bumped
Speaker 1: is how much they're paying for their room, So hotel
Speaker 1: prices fluctuate a lot by on demand. But the rooms
Speaker 1: that make hotels the least profit are all the ones
Speaker 1: booked on discount sites like Expedia or price Line, and
Speaker 1: these sites all take commission for helping to fill at
Speaker 1: hotels rooms typically anywhere from ten. So obviously I would
Speaker 1: tell would prioritize a customer who booked with them directly,
Speaker 1: since that person is paying the full rate. So if
Speaker 1: you booked on a discount site and the hotel is
Speaker 1: full when you get there, you might want to prepare
Speaker 1: to take a walk. Yeah. I've actually read how hotels
Speaker 1: usually set aside their worst rooms for those discount sites too,
Speaker 1: which is a little bit scary because I tend to
Speaker 1: use those sites at the same time. But like, I'm
Speaker 1: one of those gold star members because I do it enough,
Speaker 1: so I guess that means I get the top of
Speaker 1: the line, dirtiest nazist room. But apparently the thinking is
Speaker 1: that those customers are in it more for the value
Speaker 1: than they are the experience, so why not keep the
Speaker 1: best rooms for those who choose the hotel at full
Speaker 1: price right. I mean, it definitely makes sense from a
Speaker 1: business standpoint, but it is kind of ironic that sites
Speaker 1: like price line have become such a thorn in the
Speaker 1: hotel industry side, because, if you remember, hotels actually helped
Speaker 1: create those discounts sites way back in their early two thousand's.
Speaker 1: At the time, the hotel industry was in a serious decline.
Speaker 1: This was post September eleven, so you know, owners decided
Speaker 1: to roll the dice on a different way to sell
Speaker 1: more rooms, and all kinds of hotels started giving their
Speaker 1: inventory to these discount sites, and little by little the
Speaker 1: industry sort of picked itself up again. And now the
Speaker 1: hotels are doing so well they probably wish they could
Speaker 1: dish the discount sites entirely, but of course customers wouldn't
Speaker 1: stand for that, and with things like Airbnb and other
Speaker 1: rental platforms rising, you know, hotels are even less likely
Speaker 1: to shake things up. Yeah, you're probably right in but
Speaker 1: since we're talking about hotel financials, Actually, here was the
Speaker 1: fact that I stumble across. Did you know that the
Speaker 1: average operational cost for a hotel room is only between
Speaker 1: thirty and forty dollars a day. Now, that includes everything
Speaker 1: from the water being used, electricity, laundry, cleaning supplies, even
Speaker 1: the hourly wages of housekeepers and other employees who helped
Speaker 1: keep the room operating. So deduct about thirty dollars from
Speaker 1: whatever you're paying for the hotel room, and you can
Speaker 1: see why the industry became profitable again so quickly. That's
Speaker 1: really interesting, you know. To get us back to the
Speaker 1: front desk, though, I do want to warn you about
Speaker 1: another secret way that hotel desk clerks can get even
Speaker 1: with inconsiderate guests. And thankfully this one has some hotel
Speaker 1: slang associated with it as well. Have you ever heard
Speaker 1: of a key bomb? I can't say that I have.
Speaker 1: It sounds a little bit scary. So so what is it? So?
Speaker 1: You know the key cards that most hotels used for
Speaker 1: their rooms these days, right, Well, whenever a guest checks in,
Speaker 1: there given what's called an initial key, and this is
Speaker 1: the key that's been programmed to reset the door locked
Speaker 1: the first time it's inserted, so that no other previous
Speaker 1: keys will work anymore. And most hotels will give you
Speaker 1: two or more room keys, but only one of them
Speaker 1: is often an initial key, at least that's how it's
Speaker 1: supposed to go, But if you cross a desk agent
Speaker 1: or act like a jerk to your family in front
Speaker 1: of one, it's possible that they'll slip you a key
Speaker 1: bomb is punishment, and this is basically a second initial key,
Speaker 1: So once it gets used, the first key gets deactivated
Speaker 1: and whoever stuck with it will be locked out the
Speaker 1: next time they try to use it. And says most
Speaker 1: people will keep that is key for themselves and then
Speaker 1: give the other key to like a spouse or a child.
Speaker 1: The key bomb generally hits the person that's intended for. Ouch.
Speaker 1: You actually came across another good low key revenge plot,
Speaker 1: and this one is especially popular among desk clerks in
Speaker 1: New York City hotels. So you know how to one
Speaker 1: two is one of the oldest and maybe even the
Speaker 1: most common area code in the New York City area. Well,
Speaker 1: if you ever find yourself staying in room one to
Speaker 1: one two or twelve twelve in a New York hotel,
Speaker 1: you might just be the victim of a passive aggressive
Speaker 1: hotel worker. And that's because hotel management knows that guests
Speaker 1: often forget to dial nine when they're trying to call
Speaker 1: outside of a hotel. So whoever ends up in room twelve.
Speaker 1: Twelve is doomed to get phone calls all night from
Speaker 1: confused guest dialing one to one too. It's pretty great.
Speaker 1: That is pretty great. So let's switch on our gears
Speaker 1: for a second, because there's another secretive aspect of hotels
Speaker 1: that involves the front desk crew, and that's room service.
Speaker 1: So back in the nine thirties, the Waldorf Historian became
Speaker 1: the first hotel to deliver else directly to its rooms,
Speaker 1: and for decades afterwards this amenity was seen as almost
Speaker 1: a luxury and one that was only found in like
Speaker 1: five star hotels. But nowadays plenty of standard hotels are
Speaker 1: getting in on the action as well. In fact, around
Speaker 1: of all hotels in the country now offer some type
Speaker 1: of room service. Really that many, alright, So so what
Speaker 1: should we keep in mind when placing an order? So
Speaker 1: for starters, you have to consider which floor you're on
Speaker 1: before you make that call. So earlier this year, Metal
Speaker 1: Flaw spoke with a hospitality specialist known simply as Matt. Matt. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: he's been in the industry for ten years. He's a
Speaker 1: veteran and worked at luxury hotels and according to him,
Speaker 1: the higher floor the saggaer food is going to be
Speaker 1: when it finally gets there. And this is actually because
Speaker 1: of those big metal lids that hotels used to cover
Speaker 1: your food order. So the lids are great for retaining
Speaker 1: heat and keeping out germs, but the longer they have
Speaker 1: to travel, the more steam builds up inside them. So
Speaker 1: unless you like your toast really wet or your fries
Speaker 1: super soggy, it's probably best to skip the crispy stuff.
Speaker 1: If you're on a higher floor. Well, i mean, wet
Speaker 1: toast is probably one of my all time favorites, so
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm I'm okay here, but that's interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So you know, the metal is can actually result in
Speaker 1: another problem because the lids trap that heat, they basically
Speaker 1: continue cooking your food during the trip up to your room. So,
Speaker 1: according to Matt, if you order a steak medium, it'll
Speaker 1: probably be medium well by the time it gets to you,
Speaker 1: if not even more cooked. So his advice is to
Speaker 1: avoid steak and seafood altogether and just off for the
Speaker 1: things that are tough to mess up, like salads or
Speaker 1: club sandwiches. Well, and you even seeing hotels where sometimes
Speaker 1: those are the only items offered after a certain hour,
Speaker 1: and apparently that's to avoid having to keep an overnight
Speaker 1: chef on staff, and so instead of the day crew
Speaker 1: just preps a bunch of salads and sandwiches that they'll sell,
Speaker 1: you know, until the next day comes, which makes sense,
Speaker 1: you know. And another thing that most people don't know
Speaker 1: is that a lot of hotels now outsourced their room
Speaker 1: service to the local restaurants. So if you look closely
Speaker 1: at the menu, it might say that the food is
Speaker 1: proudly presented by the hotel, but it actually comes from
Speaker 1: a place down the street. And obviously this is another
Speaker 1: cost measure for the tell, but it's also one that
Speaker 1: most people don't mind or even notice in most cases.
Speaker 1: You know, I think I actually prefer knowing that the
Speaker 1: food I was eating was not prepared in the hotel kitchen,
Speaker 1: just from a place down the street, like a good
Speaker 1: restaurant nearby. That sounds like a smart plan. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't blame you. And hotels don't have a great
Speaker 1: reputation for being especially clean. In fact, according to the NSF,
Speaker 1: the average hotel room is dirtier than a typical home
Speaker 1: and airplane and even a school, and that's despite having
Speaker 1: an army of housekeepers just working around the clock to
Speaker 1: keep things tidy. Yeah, it's interesting to talk about it
Speaker 1: and kind of gross. But what do you say we
Speaker 1: take a closer look at hotel housekeeping and see what
Speaker 1: sorts of secrets we can turn up. Yeah, but first
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. They're listening to part time Genius,
Speaker 1: So we're talking about the secret world of hotel operations,
Speaker 1: all right, mangoes. So before we talk housekeep I do
Speaker 1: want to quickly mention two room features that hotel designers
Speaker 1: pay extra careful attention to. That would be the headboard
Speaker 1: and the bed sheets. Now it's actually something I never
Speaker 1: would have guessed, but according to industry experts, I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was Matt or who matter, there's a
Speaker 1: good chunk of a hotel's room budget that goes to
Speaker 1: an impressive looking headboard for the beds. And if you
Speaker 1: think about it, that's because the headboard is really one
Speaker 1: of the first things that a guest sees when they
Speaker 1: walk into a room, and so the trick actually works
Speaker 1: especially well in budget hotels because if fancy headboard also
Speaker 1: has the effect of pulling attention away from the rest
Speaker 1: of the furniture in the room, which was probably way
Speaker 1: cheaper than whatever they spent on that breathtaking headboard. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like that's like me as a kid, I'd
Speaker 1: always make my bed because it distracts from, like all
Speaker 1: the dirtiness. But what about the veget So what's the
Speaker 1: secret there? Well, unfortunately, there are probably all kinds of
Speaker 1: secrets lurking in these hotel bed sheets, but the one
Speaker 1: I'm talking about specifically in this case is the thread count,
Speaker 1: or the number of horizontal and vertical threads per square
Speaker 1: inch of fabric. Because hotel guests typically judge their overall
Speaker 1: experience by how well they slept, and so some hotels
Speaker 1: hedge their bets by springing for higher thread count sheets
Speaker 1: just to make sure the bed is as comfortable as
Speaker 1: it can be. And that's why even thrifty hotels might
Speaker 1: provide some fairly luxurious linen, say three or four hundred
Speaker 1: thread count, and then the price of your hotels often
Speaker 1: wrapped their guests and a scandalous six hundred thread count
Speaker 1: sheets or even higher, like you might find some as
Speaker 1: high as fifteen. I can't say I'm stayed in that
Speaker 1: hotel before. Yeah, I definitely haven't because I count when
Speaker 1: I'm in there. But since we're on the topic of
Speaker 1: bed Lynn's, do you know the housekeeper secret to casing
Speaker 1: a pillow? You mean pulling a pillowcase on a pillow.
Speaker 1: I'm sure they do it the same way we all do, right, Like,
Speaker 1: you tuck it underneath your chin, just kind of weirdly,
Speaker 1: and you have to awkwardly pull the pillow case up
Speaker 1: like a soccer pair of pants. Right. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: that works fine for our pillows at home, but imagine
Speaker 1: trying that same move with pillows from like twenty different
Speaker 1: strangers each day. Oh yeah, that's a good point. I mean,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to put my face anywhere near that
Speaker 1: many pillows in a day. But yeah, so what what
Speaker 1: what do they do? Basically, they karate chopped the middle
Speaker 1: of the pillow, they fold one side over the other,
Speaker 1: and then they just shove it into the case and
Speaker 1: smooth it out afterwards. That sounds so aggressive, but I
Speaker 1: kind of like it. I'm gonna try that out. Well,
Speaker 1: you know it's it also feels like that would be
Speaker 1: a time saver because they could do that so quickly,
Speaker 1: and that is something that's critical for housekeepers because they're
Speaker 1: always pressed for time. Just looking at the stats on this,
Speaker 1: it's pretty wild. So most hotel maids have just half
Speaker 1: an hour to devote to cleaning each standard room. A
Speaker 1: suite might get an hour or so, but they're still
Speaker 1: having to move super quickly. And what that means is
Speaker 1: that on a given day, a hotel made must clean
Speaker 1: between ten and twenty rooms in order to meet their
Speaker 1: daily quota, and because management holds them to a tight schedule,
Speaker 1: they usually aren't able to clean the rooms as thoroughly
Speaker 1: as they might like to. Yeah, I read that sometimes
Speaker 1: don't get taken care of nearly as often as they
Speaker 1: probably like, including things like vacuuming the room or scrubbing
Speaker 1: the bathtub, And that's just because there isn't enough time
Speaker 1: to do these more involved every single day, so they
Speaker 1: wind up being pushed back to you know, once a
Speaker 1: week or whatever. Yeah, that's right. And you know, while
Speaker 1: we've all heard the horror stories of how bacteria laid
Speaker 1: in the hotel remote is or the light switch or
Speaker 1: the telephone, and it is worth noting that a lot
Speaker 1: of this contamination is the fallout from these hairy schedules
Speaker 1: that housekeepers have to keep rather than any kind of
Speaker 1: laziness or oversight on their part. In fact, I think
Speaker 1: we talked about this in one of our very first
Speaker 1: episodes in our invention that we still haven't marketed yet.
Speaker 1: But it's the hotel remote condom right where you take
Speaker 1: you take the shower cap from a hotel I still
Speaker 1: do this. Do you do this in hotel rooms whenever
Speaker 1: I go into It's one of my tips, Mango, you
Speaker 1: should have followed this. But you go in, you find
Speaker 1: the shower cap and you put it over the remote.
Speaker 1: It's just the life saver, and then you walk around
Speaker 1: with it and flip every light switch with something's wrong
Speaker 1: with me, But that's okay. But if you think about it,
Speaker 1: people who clean hotel rooms don't have time to test
Speaker 1: how clean a surfaces, and so instead they use the
Speaker 1: same system that we do at home, and that's just
Speaker 1: to look at it and see if it looks clean.
Speaker 1: And obviously this visual assessment leaves a ton of room
Speaker 1: for air and that's why. And this set is a
Speaker 1: little bit troubling, but it's not uncommon for about eight
Speaker 1: of hotel room services to hold at least some amount
Speaker 1: of fecal Back to eight percent no matter how clean
Speaker 1: they might look to the naked eye. But the most
Speaker 1: important thing to remember is to never ever use the
Speaker 1: glass cups you find in a hotel room under any circumstances.
Speaker 1: So I feel like this is the second time you
Speaker 1: mentioned this, and I'm really curious what's going on. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just that, like the house cleaners don't clean them. Yes,
Speaker 1: the second time I've mentioned it since we started recording.
Speaker 1: I was telling Tristan just before we started. But it's
Speaker 1: the cleaning that's the problem. And so there was an
Speaker 1: author and a hotel worker named Jacob Tomsky that wrote
Speaker 1: a hospitality tell all a few years ago. It's called
Speaker 1: Heads and Beds. And in the book, Tomsky points out
Speaker 1: that hotel maids don't actually have dish soap and their
Speaker 1: housekeeping cards. So, as he explained to USA Today, quote,
Speaker 1: some housekeepers will wash the passes in the sink with
Speaker 1: hot water and shampoo, but many of them use furniture
Speaker 1: polished because it leaves the glasses spot free. How disgusting
Speaker 1: is that? I mean that seems gross but also maybe
Speaker 1: a little dangerous too. Yeah, it definitely is. I mean
Speaker 1: some housekeepers have even admitted to polishing the glasses with
Speaker 1: the same cloth that they use to dust the rest
Speaker 1: of the room. And so while it probably goes without
Speaker 1: saying that is a really bad move mobs and sponges
Speaker 1: and dusters that you find in housekeeping cards, they have
Speaker 1: bacteria accounts that are even way worse than the dreaded
Speaker 1: hotel remote. No number of shower caps can solve this,
Speaker 1: which is pretty foul. You know, I don't want to
Speaker 1: come down too hard on hotel housekeepers because at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, they work so hard under really
Speaker 1: difficult circumstances. Definite and uh, you know, I found the
Speaker 1: study from two thousand five where researchers looked at more
Speaker 1: than nine Las Vegas housekeepers, and what they found was
Speaker 1: a mini neck and backpin epidemic. So of the workers
Speaker 1: studied suffered from some form the severe bodily pain, which
Speaker 1: really isn't surprising when you consider that those cards that
Speaker 1: they push up and down the hallway weighs a few
Speaker 1: hundred pounds when fully loaded with supplies, right, and you
Speaker 1: think about the task that they have to do and
Speaker 1: how repetitive they are, like lifting the mattress in every
Speaker 1: single room just to tuck in that bottom sheet, so
Speaker 1: you would think that that repeated stress has to take
Speaker 1: its toll over some time, which is why it's such
Speaker 1: an injustice that hotel housekeepers are as underpaid as they are.
Speaker 1: I mean, the median annual salary for the profession is
Speaker 1: just unders and in many places that's at or below
Speaker 1: the poverty line for a family of three. Well, with
Speaker 1: that in mind, it actually seems like a good time
Speaker 1: to mention the secret to tipping your hotel housekeeper. And
Speaker 1: this comes from a few different anonymous maids on Reddit.
Speaker 1: By the way, it was interesting to read this thread here,
Speaker 1: but they suggest leaving a dollar or two each day
Speaker 1: instead of a big tip at the end of your stay.
Speaker 1: And I'll admit that I'm guilty of this. I usually
Speaker 1: wait until the end of this day, so this was interesting.
Speaker 1: But this actually ensures that every maid who cleans your
Speaker 1: room gets a hip, and not just the last one
Speaker 1: to do so before you check out. And also, if
Speaker 1: you have any unopened snacks or drinks that you want
Speaker 1: to leave behind for the housekeeping crew, those are apparently
Speaker 1: much appreciated as well. But you know, some hotels do
Speaker 1: have pretty strict policies about items left behind in guest room.
Speaker 1: So it is a good idea to leave a little
Speaker 1: note saying who the money or other goodies are actually
Speaker 1: meant for, which is sound advice. And there's actually something
Speaker 1: else you can do if you really want to help
Speaker 1: your housekeeper out, and that's to stop turning down the housekeeping.
Speaker 1: And you are telling everything that I am guilty of sometimes.
Speaker 1: So do you mean never skip a day of housekeeping
Speaker 1: when you're at a hotel? Like, aren't you just making
Speaker 1: more work for them by opting in for cleaning? So
Speaker 1: that's what I was thinking too, But I was reading
Speaker 1: this article from the Atlantic about how some hotel workers
Speaker 1: actually dislike their company's sustainability programs because the negative impact
Speaker 1: it has on their own workloads. So Star Wars Hotels,
Speaker 1: for instance, has this program where guests can help produce
Speaker 1: their carbon footprint by waving the housekeeping for up to
Speaker 1: three nights. But as it turns out, this was actually
Speaker 1: a massive headache for the cleaning staff. So listen to
Speaker 1: this breakdown from the article quote. Devising a work schedule
Speaker 1: that had employees cleaning contiguous rooms became impossible with so
Speaker 1: many guests selecting the green option. This meant that a
Speaker 1: housekeeper who used to push her cart down a single
Speaker 1: hallway to clean fifteen adjacent rooms, now had to move
Speaker 1: the cumbersome apparatus from florida floor or even from building
Speaker 1: to building in order to meet her daily quota of rooms. Moreover,
Speaker 1: housekeepers now had to clean sometimes filthy rooms that had
Speaker 1: not been maintained by housekeeping for several days. Most significantly,
Speaker 1: with fewer hours of work per week. They lost pay
Speaker 1: in the wake of so many guests electing to make
Speaker 1: a green choice. So in the end, the new initiative
Speaker 1: was such a burden that the hotel workers union in
Speaker 1: Hawaii actually got Star Wars to do away with the
Speaker 1: program in the state. I mean, it does seem like
Speaker 1: maybe they could have just gotten some of the housekeepers
Speaker 1: together and come up with some sort of strategy, because
Speaker 1: it feels like there's got to be a middle ground
Speaker 1: that still benefits the environment without making life miserable for
Speaker 1: these employees. Definitely, Like think about those little placards that
Speaker 1: most hotels leave in the bathroom now, like the ones
Speaker 1: that encourage you to reuse your dirty towels for as
Speaker 1: long as you can stand it, And that kind of
Speaker 1: program is great for the environment. And the hotel's water bill.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't increase or decrease the housekeeper's workload in
Speaker 1: a way that's going to cost them money or discomfort.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's true in theory, but how well do
Speaker 1: those little placards even work? I see them, and I'm
Speaker 1: curious about that? So really well, actually, there was a
Speaker 1: study out of the University of Luxembourg a few years
Speaker 1: back that found that people tend to use fewer towels
Speaker 1: when they're told that previous guests in the same room
Speaker 1: had chosen to reuse their towels. So were they testing
Speaker 1: like different messages on placards in different rooms or what. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this study used three different messages. So one message
Speaker 1: just kind of praised the environmental benefits of towel reuse,
Speaker 1: and another claim that seventy of guests in this hotel
Speaker 1: usually use their towels more than once. But the last message,
Speaker 1: and the most effective by far, claimed that seventy of
Speaker 1: guests in this room usually use their towels more than once.
Speaker 1: Let me make sure I have this right. The environmental
Speaker 1: message had very little impact, which is not that big
Speaker 1: of a surprise. But you're saying that people also didn't
Speaker 1: care what other guests, just generally in the hotel we're
Speaker 1: doing with their towels. But why do they care so
Speaker 1: much what previous guests in the same room had done
Speaker 1: with their tels? Like it just seems like a weird
Speaker 1: form of peer pressure. It really is. But the researchers
Speaker 1: beyond the studies speculated that the third placard works so
Speaker 1: well because it made people feel like they shared something
Speaker 1: in common with the previous guests, and for some reason,
Speaker 1: this kinship made them more likely to conform to the
Speaker 1: social norm of reusing their towels. Like sharing the same
Speaker 1: hotel wasn't seen as a rare enough trait to trigger
Speaker 1: this kind of psychological response and guests, but for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: sharing the same room was. It feels like they need
Speaker 1: to start some sort of like almost the equivalent of
Speaker 1: an alumni association for people that had stayed and that
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try it out the next time I stay
Speaker 1: at a hotel, see what see what kind of momentum
Speaker 1: I can get. But it is interesting to see where
Speaker 1: people draw the line on this kind of thing. But
Speaker 1: all right, now that we've covered some of housekeeping secrets,
Speaker 1: I feel like we should shine the spotlight on an
Speaker 1: another member of the hotel staff that we ask way
Speaker 1: too much of, and that's the concierge. First, let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break. So you're listening to part time Genius
Speaker 1: and we're talking about the little known secrets of the
Speaker 1: hotel concierge. So well, I don't know about you, but
Speaker 1: concierge service is probably my favorite of all the hotel
Speaker 1: amenities I never actually use, and most of the hotels
Speaker 1: I stay I don't even offer it. But I just
Speaker 1: love the idea of being assigned my own personal fixer,
Speaker 1: like someone to help find a replacement shirt for the
Speaker 1: one I've spilled spaghetti on. It's always spaghetti, I don't
Speaker 1: know why, or or to score that hard to get
Speaker 1: dinner reservation at the last possible minute. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: concierge would appreciate being called your personal fixer, but I
Speaker 1: do agree that concierge services this pretty amazing thing. And
Speaker 1: it feels a little bit old fashioned, because you know,
Speaker 1: you think the days, a lot of people just use
Speaker 1: their smartphones to do the same kind of stuff. If
Speaker 1: you're looking for a restaurant, if you're just looking for
Speaker 1: tips in the city, or something like that. But this
Speaker 1: idea of a dedicated concierge, it feels a little more
Speaker 1: quaint maybe now than it used to. But that's also
Speaker 1: kind of what I like about it. Yeah, so maybe
Speaker 1: a fixer wasn't a great word for it. How about
Speaker 1: an on site hotel genie? I mean, I feel like
Speaker 1: that makes less sense than the first. And what do
Speaker 1: you mean? So? Um, I don't know, think about it, like,
Speaker 1: concierge is like a mysterious, seldom seen service. Most people
Speaker 1: don't understand it. They pull off these bizarre, almost impossible
Speaker 1: requests like magic, and they do where these cryptic symbols
Speaker 1: are on their next to signify the international secret society
Speaker 1: that they belonged to. But what was that last part
Speaker 1: that you said? Did you slip that in because you
Speaker 1: thought I was paying attention a secret society? No, it's
Speaker 1: a real thing. So the group is called the CLEFTI
Speaker 1: or and I guess that means the Golden Keys, And
Speaker 1: it's essentially this international network of hotel concierge is. It
Speaker 1: dates back to the early twentieth century France, and the
Speaker 1: group's members are easy to spot because they all wear
Speaker 1: these golden cross keys on their lapels. Today, the group
Speaker 1: has roughly four thousand members brought across eighty different countries
Speaker 1: and over five travel destinations, and the group's official website
Speaker 1: touts the Golden Keys are in quote, literally every corner
Speaker 1: of the world. I mean, I'll be honest, I thought
Speaker 1: this was going to get less creepy after the explanation,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't seem to be the case. But there
Speaker 1: there is something sort of endearing about their being this
Speaker 1: global brotherhood of concierges who all have each other's bags.
Speaker 1: I guess yeah. And a big part of the group's
Speaker 1: appeal is that all the members share their connections with
Speaker 1: one another. So if one member has an especially tough
Speaker 1: guest request, chances are that they can get in touch
Speaker 1: with a fellow member for a hook up. And it's
Speaker 1: those connections that really allowed concierges to pull off some
Speaker 1: of the great requests that they get. So I was
Speaker 1: reading about this one concierge. He's worked in upscale hotels
Speaker 1: all over the world. His name is buraka Pecky, and
Speaker 1: when he used to work in a hotel in New York,
Speaker 1: a guest wants asked him to track down the super
Speaker 1: specific barbecue sauce that was made in small batches down
Speaker 1: in Louisiana, and that probably would have been a tough
Speaker 1: enough request on its own, but sourcing the sauce was
Speaker 1: actually the easy part. So the guests simply didn't want
Speaker 1: the sauce ship to him in New York. Instaid he
Speaker 1: wanted it overnight it to his island home in the Caribbean,
Speaker 1: nearly two thousand miles away. And he didn't just want
Speaker 1: to bottle like, he wanted enough barbecue sauce for an
Speaker 1: entire garden party which he was apparently going to host
Speaker 1: the next day or something. I mean, this sounds like
Speaker 1: your normal, run of the mill request to me, even
Speaker 1: if it has nothing to do with the city that
Speaker 1: he was in. That is so bizarre. I mean, seriously,
Speaker 1: that was a pecky able to pull this off. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, thanks to that network. And actually, in case
Speaker 1: you weren't already convinced about the power of golden keys,
Speaker 1: there's this other story I wanted to share, and this
Speaker 1: one comes from Sandra Newman, and she's the chief concierge
Speaker 1: at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi and during her
Speaker 1: tenure there, she's helped with a ton of marriage proposals
Speaker 1: and weddings. But there's one wedding in particular that I'm
Speaker 1: guessing she'll never forget even if she wants to. And
Speaker 1: that's because she was once approached by a couple who
Speaker 1: wanted her help planning a wedding for two of their
Speaker 1: teddy bears. Seriously, like this sounds less like the work
Speaker 1: of a genie and more just like enabling people asking
Speaker 1: for ridiculous things. So I agree, I'm not sure that
Speaker 1: teddy bear weddings are the kind of thing you want
Speaker 1: to encourage on hotel property and loose. But at any rate,
Speaker 1: it did really happen. Um. While I doubt Newman had
Speaker 1: to call in any favors with the Golden Keys to
Speaker 1: make it happen, she did throw a pretty stellar wedding. Apparently,
Speaker 1: there were twenty five other teddy bears and attendance that day,
Speaker 1: each of which was seated with a placard. UH. They
Speaker 1: provided fresh slices of wedding pizza to enjoy during the
Speaker 1: reception to each of these teddy bears, and Newman actually
Speaker 1: described the scene in this interview with The National Um.
Speaker 1: She says, quote, there was pizza laid out on a
Speaker 1: table for every teddy bear at the respective place, with
Speaker 1: the side play and slices of pizza for the celebration.
Speaker 1: This was a serious affair. I mean, it definitely sounds
Speaker 1: like some kind of affair. I'm not sure if serious
Speaker 1: is the word I'd use, but the het is a
Speaker 1: weird of a great story. Actually, in that same bizarre Vain,
Speaker 1: I found this great story about a hotel staff in
Speaker 1: Utah that started fielding these really odd requests from an
Speaker 1: extremely board traveling businessman. This guy's name is Sean fitz Simmons,
Speaker 1: and for the better part of six years or so,
Speaker 1: he'd been traveling from Denver to Salt Lake City every
Speaker 1: other week. Now, somewhere in that cycle, Sean decided to
Speaker 1: make a decidedly weird request when he was booking his
Speaker 1: room online. So here's what he asked. He asked the
Speaker 1: staff to, quote, draw a picture of what you think
Speaker 1: I look like and place it on my bed, and
Speaker 1: you thought that gold keys were This is weird, But
Speaker 1: in his defense, Sean seems to have known he did
Speaker 1: a pretty weird thing, so he later said, quote, when
Speaker 1: I checked in, the lady at the front desk looked
Speaker 1: at me so weird, and it got so awkward, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I can't ever come back here again.
Speaker 1: But he did come back, and as it turned out,
Speaker 1: the amazing staff at this hotel decided to go along
Speaker 1: with his request, and after that the floodgates were open.
Speaker 1: Sean continued making these occasional odd ball requests during his
Speaker 1: frequent trips, and the hotel staff has been game to
Speaker 1: try to pull these things off at every turn. So
Speaker 1: just listen to some of the things that Sean is
Speaker 1: requested to have put on his bed, and keep in
Speaker 1: mind that you can go online and actually see what
Speaker 1: the hotel came up with for each part of these.
Speaker 1: So one affort built out of pillows, a picture of
Speaker 1: a dog dressed as a boat captain, a printed photo
Speaker 1: of Grandma Winslow from Family Matters, and then of course
Speaker 1: maybe my favorite pictures of Alfonso Ribeiro and Jeremy Jackson
Speaker 1: arranged so that they appear to be looking at each other.
Speaker 1: So that's Carlton from The Fresh Prince. And is that
Speaker 1: one of the dudes from day one? Yes? So I
Speaker 1: guess Sean is maybe a little bit stuck in the nineties,
Speaker 1: but it's still nice to see that the staff is
Speaker 1: playing along with him, don't you think? I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you knew this or not. It's kind
Speaker 1: of an open secret that hotel staff can be pretty accommodating.
Speaker 1: I think so. In fact, I think the Teddy Bear
Speaker 1: wedding and Abu Dhabi was pretty solid proof of that.
Speaker 1: But I know there are a ton of great hotel
Speaker 1: facts that we haven't gotten too yet. So what do
Speaker 1: you say we share a few more of our favorite
Speaker 1: and today's fact off count me in. The management at
Speaker 1: Happy Guest hotel in the UK has a unique way
Speaker 1: to make their guests feel less lonely, and that's by
Speaker 1: providing them with a roommate during stays. And that roommate
Speaker 1: is a goldfish named Happy. So, according to the hotel's website,
Speaker 1: you can book Happy or a Happy stand in ahead
Speaker 1: of time so that he's waiting in your room upon arrival.
Speaker 1: And you might be wondering, like why a goldfish? According
Speaker 1: to list Verse, the hotel's owner believes quote that this
Speaker 1: little fish provides a sense of comfort, a sounding board,
Speaker 1: and unconditional love to the guest after a hard day.
Speaker 1: All right, well, here's one thing I was surprised by
Speaker 1: It's not uncommon for business travelers to be so lonely
Speaker 1: that they act the room service waiters to come in
Speaker 1: and eat with them. According to our friends at Mental
Speaker 1: Flaws who talked with an industry ved at a high
Speaker 1: end hotel in San Francisco, it happens more often than
Speaker 1: you'd think. So Matt once sat down to eat with
Speaker 1: Oprah Winfrey, who was eating by her self despite her
Speaker 1: sweet being filled with her own employees. And at one
Speaker 1: time he had a bite with JFK Jr. Who wanted
Speaker 1: him to join as he watched Fast Times at Ridgemont
Speaker 1: High Not a bad gig. So one of the world's
Speaker 1: smallest hotels is in Amberg, Germany, and it has this
Speaker 1: fascinating origin story. So according to Unique Hotels, the property
Speaker 1: was built in and this is when German couples who
Speaker 1: wanted to get married actually had to own property. So
Speaker 1: someone built a tiny house in this eight foot gap
Speaker 1: between two buildings and dubbed it the marriage house. Basically,
Speaker 1: you bought the keys from a friend, you owned the
Speaker 1: house till you were married, and then you sold it
Speaker 1: to the next couple. And today it's more of a
Speaker 1: traditional hotel, so you don't have to get married to
Speaker 1: stay there. Interesting, all right, well, are you familiar with
Speaker 1: the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas. It's that you know
Speaker 1: that pyramid that kind of shoots down that beam of
Speaker 1: light into the into the air there. Now, apparently the
Speaker 1: lightbeam is so strong that it's generated its own ecosystem
Speaker 1: on the Vegas Strip there. You think about the bugs
Speaker 1: and the moths that are attracted to that kind of light,
Speaker 1: and it's so tremendous that they make pilgrim images to it.
Speaker 1: And then bats and even hunting birds will swoop in
Speaker 1: and travel from as far as twenty miles away to
Speaker 1: feast on this insect buffet that's there. And according to
Speaker 1: the San Francisco Gate, people who aren't paying too much attention,
Speaker 1: they actually think that the hotel is pumping glitter into
Speaker 1: the air because it's a lot of like shining light
Speaker 1: reflecting off of these insects, so they don't realize it's
Speaker 1: just a bunch of bugs getting eaten by bats. I
Speaker 1: love that the best buffet on the Vegas Strip is
Speaker 1: an insect prefet. It's pretty great. So in two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: Time magazine reported that hotels in Hawaii started using these
Speaker 1: high tech towels with microchips in them, and the system
Speaker 1: helped the hotel monitor their linen so they knew when
Speaker 1: to replace towels. But more importantly, it actually helped them
Speaker 1: keep track of towel thieves. So according to one hotel,
Speaker 1: they saved over fifteen thousand dollars and stolen towels that
Speaker 1: year thanks to the chips, which I guess makes sense,
Speaker 1: especially at a hotel where people might take the towels
Speaker 1: to the beach. So, according to Colin Powell's biography, when
Speaker 1: mikhale Gorbachev came to negotiate with Reagan and a Russian
Speaker 1: delegation state at the Madison Hotel, the mini bar got
Speaker 1: an extreme workout. The Russians were apparently enamored with this
Speaker 1: magically stocked fridge and spent about three thousand dollars a
Speaker 1: night adjusting for inflation, just at these mini bars, and
Speaker 1: so the bill was getting so high that the head
Speaker 1: of the mission had to ask hotel management to replace
Speaker 1: the alcohol with soda. I mean, it is many bar
Speaker 1: prices side. I don't know if that's like five thousand
Speaker 1: paca nuts. But Atlas Obscura writes at the oldest hotel
Speaker 1: in the world, which is also centered on a spot,
Speaker 1: was started in seven oh five C by an emperor's
Speaker 1: aid at the time, and it's actually been run by
Speaker 1: the same family for over fifty two different generations of descendants.
Speaker 1: That is a really interesting stat All right, Well, here's
Speaker 1: a sweet one. A guy named Sean Siepler was a
Speaker 1: tech exact and he was doing a lot of traveling
Speaker 1: when he realized that he barely used the bar of
Speaker 1: soap that his hotel had provided. So he called down
Speaker 1: and asked what happened to the soap, and of course
Speaker 1: it was just being thrown away. That the same time,
Speaker 1: he learned that one point four million kids die each
Speaker 1: year from pneumonia or cholera, and all the diseases that
Speaker 1: could be prevented with better access to hygiene. So he
Speaker 1: decided to combine these concepts and created Clean the World.
Speaker 1: This is a nonprofit that collects soaps from hotels, sanitizes
Speaker 1: and melts them down, repackages them, and then sends them
Speaker 1: to struggling communities. And they do this on a pretty
Speaker 1: massive scale. So, for example, the nine thousand room Sands
Speaker 1: Hotel in macau is one of the hotels that participates
Speaker 1: in the program, and as a result, Clean the World
Speaker 1: collects over seven hundred metric tons of waste and converts
Speaker 1: it into twelve million bars of soap that get distributed
Speaker 1: to kids in sixties seven different countries. And that's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: Twelve million bars of soap. I mean, I just assumed
Speaker 1: you were talking about like little boutique hotels, But you know,
Speaker 1: that is amazing and I think he deserved the prize
Speaker 1: for that one. And also maybe that gives us a
Speaker 1: little more insight into what Tristan is doing over there
Speaker 1: with those tiny soaps and shampoos. Yeah, he probably has
Speaker 1: about as much as Clean the World. That's it's impressive.
Speaker 1: But but thanks so much and thanks to you guys
Speaker 1: for listening. If you have any great facts you'd like
Speaker 1: to share, any fun stories you'd like to share about
Speaker 1: your stay and hotels, we of course love to hear
Speaker 1: those from you. You can email us part Time Genius
Speaker 1: at how stuff Works dot com or hit us up
Speaker 1: on Facebook or Twitter. But as always, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for listening. Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is
Speaker 1: a production of How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible
Speaker 1: without several brilliant people who do the important things we
Speaker 1: couldn't even begin to understand. Tristan McNeil does the editing thing.
Speaker 1: Noel Brown made the theme song and does the MIXI
Speaker 1: mixy sound thing. Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing.
Speaker 1: Gay Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the
Speaker 1: Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams
Speaker 1: and Eve. Jeff Cook gets the show to your ears.
Speaker 1: Good job, Eves. If you like what you heard, we
Speaker 1: hope you'll subscribe, And if you really really like what
Speaker 1: you've heard, maybe you could leave a good review for us.
Speaker 1: We do. We forget Jason Jason who