Tipping Your Hotel Housekeepers Matters More Than You Ever Knew
Former first lady of California Maria Shriver and Marriott hotels have announced a new initiative that encourages hotel guests to tip the people who clean their rooms.
Shriver is the founder of A Woman's Nation, an organization that seeks to empower women in the workforce and at home. Along with between 750 and 1,000 hotels, she's taking part in The Envelope Please campaign, which places envelopes for gratuities in around 160,000 hotel rooms.
The envelope will have the name of the person who cleans the room on it along with the message "Our caring room attendants enjoyed making your stay warm and comfortable. Please feel free to leave a gratuity to express your appreciation for their efforts," the Associated Press reported Monday.
So for those who didn't already know, the word is out: Tip your room attendant.
The campaign recommends leaving between $1 and $5 a night, depending on the cost of the room, and specifies that you should leave the money each day because you won't have the same attendant for your entire stay.
Cleaning hotel rooms is hard work, and many room attendants don't make much more than minimum wage. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average hourly wage for a maid or housecleaner working in "traveler accommodation" is around $10 an hour.
It's not yet clear how much more money regular tipping would bring room attendants—and it would likely depend on the hotel and city where they work—but one researcher quoted by the AP said around 30 percent of guests don't leave a tip.
Brian Lang, president of Unite Here! 26, the hospitality workers' union in Boston, says that though he thinks the campaign is a good thing, "it's a token."
Attendants will undoubtedly appreciate a little extra cash, but Lang claims "there's a lot more that needs to be done to show appreciation"—mainly better wages and a gentler workload. Increasingly luxurious rooms with heavier mattresses, more pillows, and complicated duvets take a physical toll on room attendants over time. Though it is true that the more hotel guests know about attendants' work, the better conditions could get.
Unite Here! has unionized around half the hotel and hospitality workers in Boston. According to Lang, this includes "a few thousand" room attendants who make $19 an hour and receive benefits. He says this should be the standard, especially since "rooms in Boston go for $400 a night and up during the busy season, and the hotel makes a ton of money."
Tipping, especially in the restaurant industry, has come under some scrutiny lately. Research has found it's often arbitrary, sometimes racist, and rarely correlates with quality of service. Some trailblazing restaurants have even banned the practice, raising prices on the menu and increasing staff wages instead.
"The fact of the matter is the vast, vast majority of room attendants are paid poverty wages," Lang says. The Envelope Please is a good strategy to get hotel guests to be more aware of the person who cleans their room, but wage increases are the only reliable way to make sure room attendants bring home more money.
"It is not Marriott's responsibility to remind customers to tip," writer and reporter Barbara Ehrenreich told the AP. Ehrenreich worked as a maid in a hotel and in private homes for Nickel and Dimed, her book about the plight of low-wage workers. "It's their responsibility to pay their workers enough so that tips aren't necessary."
Related stories on TakePart:
• OK, We All Know Tipping in Restaurants Is Ridiculous—Right?
• Newest No-Tipping Restaurant Sends Customer Tips to Charity
• This Big-Tipping Spree Makes the (Unintended) Case for Abolishing the Practice
Original article from TakePart
