<H1>Sheraton's Steve Powell</H1><H3>By Linda Humphrey</H3>Edging closer to an industry standard, early-departure fees are spreading from Hyatt and Westin to Hilton and to tryouts at Inter-Continental, Renaissance and Wyndham.
So far, only Sheraton and Red Lion have vowed not to sign on. Marriott is a holdout as well, but hasn't closed the door on the possibility.
Claiming the policy frees up inventory for transient travelers who otherwise might not get a room key, Hyatt and Westin kicked off the new year by rolling out the $25-to-$50 fees systemwide, reporting little backlash from guests (BTN, Nov. 6, 1995).
Many of the culprits driving this policy are meetings attendees, who increasingly are packing up early, said Dave Scypinski, director of convention and meetings marketing for Hilton, which intends to roll out a $50 charge nationwide by year-end as a result of successful tryouts in New York and Washington, D.C.
"Meetings aren't getting shorter, but people are leaving their meetings earlier," Scypinski said. "We've experienced meetings going from four days to 3.2 days, even though our business is up. That's a trend in the business world: People don't have enough time, so they're taking shortcuts."
Inter-Continental Hotels & Resorts recently launched a six-month test in Chicago and New Orleans for meetings attendees only, according to Scott Boone, vice president of sales, the Americas.
"We've noticed an increase in early departures over the past three to four years, especially with convention attendees," Boone said. Attendees usually book rooms months ahead for the whole conference, then adjust their schedules and neglect to notify the hotel, he said.
"We don't see this as a penalty," Boone said. "We just want guests to focus on their departure date so that we in turn will have inventory to offer."
Although the test targets meetings attendees-who have more control over their departure date than transients do, Boone said-Inter-Continental will consider applying the fee to all guests when reviewing the tryout in late summer, just prior to the fall convention season.
Jack Breisacher, executive vice president for Renaissance Hotels, which has been testing early-checkout fees for several months in Dallas and Washington, D.C., said that budget cutbacks have meant less free time for meetings attendees.
"A few years ago, you'd have a three-day meeting and then golf for two days," he said. "In today's meetings, you don't play golf unless you come in a day early and pay for it out of your own pocket."
But meetings attendees aren't the only travelers spurring early-checkout fees. Transient business travelers traditionally have checked in on a Sunday night and checked out on a Wednesday, or arrived on a Wednesday and left on a Friday, Breisacher said. But the current frenzied pace of business has shattered those patterns.
"There's no heinous plot out there to check out of hotels early; it's just that travel patterns have changed," Breisacher said. Renaissance will decide whether to roll out its policy nationwide within two to three months, he said.
Travel managers, meanwhile, protest that slapping travelers with a fee won't solve the issue. "We're not for it," said Earl Foster, corporate travel operations manager for Hewlett-Packard and president of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives. "The way to modify the traveler's behavior is not through punitive fees but through education on both sides: hotels educating their front-desk and reservations agents to ask the right questions and travel managers to educate their travelers to consider the hotel."
Sheraton's talks with travel managers, in fact, led the chain to reject an early-departure fee. "When Hyatt and Westin enacted their policies, we went to some of our key corporate travel managers and asked them what they thought about it," said Steve Powell, vice president, director of sales for Sheraton's North America division. "They expressed extreme dissatisfaction with these policies, to the point of moving business from hotels that had adopted it."
Sheraton forecasts for short stays, Powell said, and invokes attrition policies for groups. "We're going to hold on to just our attrition clause at this point," Powell said. "With good historical information on the group and honest communication during the process of the meeting planning, you can get rid of this problem."
Red Lion has cast a "no" vote as well: "We are not going to get into charging for early departures; I think they are very much a shortsighted, quick-fix situation," said vice president of sales and marketing Jeff Angus. "I'll be surprised to see if it lasts. Travel plans change, and it's part of our job as professional hotel managers to deal with those changes on an ongoing basis."
Marriott also recently reviewed and rejected the policy yet will "leave the door open a bit," said Richard Hanks, vice president of marketing strategy. "If we were seeing droves of people checking out early, there is a possibility that at that time we would also choose to do it."
Recently completing "a very thorough analysis of how long people say they're going to stay against how long they actually stayed," Marriott determined that the benefit to the hotel wouldn't offset the inconveniences to the guest, Hanks said.
Wyndham, in the midst of a year-long test at the Anatole in Dallas, does not plan to extend the policy to more than a handful of convention hotels, said Ed Stall, vice president of corporate marketing. "It's not really a problem with the individual traveler," he said. "It's more when you block rooms for a group and then it falls apart with people leaving early."
Chains with scores of franchises also are steering clear of a systemwide policy. "Some of our franchises have raised the issue," said Martin Gray, vice president of marketing for Holiday Inn Express, Select and SunSpree Resorts. "But in a franchising system, it's hard to dictate a policy." The Holiday Inn Select-New Orleans Convention Center is planning to try the policy.
Still other chains are watching to see how it all shakes out. "We're waiting to see what happens with the big hotel chains," said Janis Cannon, vice president of sales and marketing for Swissôtel North America. "I think that the airline industry is also waiting to see what will happen in the hotel industry."
Swissôtel has, however, implemented the fees at citywide conventions in Atlanta, Chicago and New York. "We want to make sure that we take care of our corporate individual travelers, who come to our hotels all year long," Cannon said.