The hotel minibar is dead! Long live the hotel minibar!
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Say goodbye to the in-room $4 Twix bar and the $7 mini-bottle of Absolut during your next hotel stay. USA Today reports that minibars are being removed from luxury hotels across the United States. The reason: people aren’t using them, and the labor costs of checking the minibar contents every day are outweighing the profits.
But don’t say goodbye to the soft sounds of the refrigerator’s compressor just yet. In place of the minibar, hotels are installing small, empty refrigerators.
Some people may miss the old minibars. Members of InterContinental Hotels’ Royal Ambassador program receive complimentary beverages from the minibar, and they may be worried that their elite status is being diluted. (My wife and I also enjoyed one memorable complimentary minibar during our honeymoon in Barbados: We were upgraded — of course — to The House, where the bottle of Bollinger waiting in the fridge was particularly nice…)
But the rebirth of the minibar as a simple refrigerator is good news for most travelers, who now have room to store items of their own choosing. While it’s nice to eat out, restaurant food can become tiresome during longer travels, especially at breakfast. Being able to have a simple bowl of cereal, with the milk of my choice, in my hotel room in the morning is hardly glamorous, but it makes travel more comfortable. Having a fridge in the room is a big plus in my book.
Alternatively, some hotels are spicing their ‘bars up a bit:
Some hotels including the Thompson in New York and James in Arizona are stocking their minibars with Intimacy Kits which, in case you need to ask, contain condoms, cinnamon mints, scented cloths, and even personal lubricants and feather ticklers.
Sassy! But I hope they don’t keep these things too cold…
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March 4th, 2007 at 7:48 pm |
[…] Putting the “condom” back into “condominium”? Hotels and restaurants in the Chinese province of Zhejiang are now required to make condoms available for sale (or for free) or face hefty fines. Sounds like they need to follow the lead of hotels that spice up their minibars with alternative offerings… […]
March 6th, 2007 at 8:49 pm |
[…] As reported earlier, hotels have been removing minibars from rooms or replacing the traditional refreshments with more… adult fare. Romance is apparently also a dish served cold. (Who knew!) […]
February 6th, 2008 at 10:48 am |
I saw this recently at the Gaylord Palms Resort in Orlando. They had a mini fridge with free bottles of water and on one of the beds had a list of things you could request your fridge to be stocked with, for exorbitant prices, of course. For people who valued convince over money, they could fill that out and leave it on the door. For people who wanted to buy outside stuff, there was a fridge ready. And for the hotel, well, they don’t have to check contents on a daily basis. Great way of doing it.
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:18 pm |
[…] Upgraded: Olympic condoms With the summer games coming up, Chinese hotels are stocking up on condoms. Yes, really. “The condoms shall not be used as evidence of prostitution and whoring.” Well thank goodness! But will they be found in the minibar? […]
April 9th, 2008 at 2:44 am |
Mimibars will live for ever