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We are a service industry, paying at least the minimum wage and, subject to experience, a lot of employees get paid a lot more. The hospitality industry, particularly specialised roles such as managers and chefs are truly well paid. The object of hotels and restaurants is to entice guests to their establishment – not to nail them with extra charges.
The main culprit of this is so-called service charge which, albeit in most cases is optional, in my opinion is a fixed asset and customers are made to feel embarrassed when questioning an amount. In 99% of the cases the guest would just pay up and leave. Sometimes the cost can be the equivalent of another meal particularly if they have gone overboard on their bill due to a special occasion and if certain articles cost more, but the service involves no extra work. For example a bottle of wine costing £20 and a 15% surcharge would bring that up to £23 – if you go all out and order an expensive bottle of wine for £100 – the cost of upgrading has cost you an extra £15.
The presentation and aspects of opening a bottle is no more with regards to timing and effort. Add this to the total of a bill and you can see how the numbers rise.
A new norm is now to add service charge to rooms and overall stay – again the more you spend and the longer you stay the more the surcharge. Yet this practice is found very little in the rest of the service industry such as tourist attractions, shops or similar service related industries. When you go into a shop to buy a shirt and the attendant helps you, you are not charged an additional 15% for the service.
This indeed is akin to daylight robbery within our industry. In the highly competitive hotel market the loyalty of our guests should not be rewarded with us giving them a service charge. Whilst I am not against tipping an individual for exceptional service, there needs to be a ceiling height on these charges.
Thomas Noblett is the managing director at Langdale Chase Hotel. Thsi feature first appeared in the June 2015 issue of Hotel Owner
