- Gara S.
- posts hotel amenities
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- hotels, amenities
Taking hotel amenities with you: souvenirs, necesity or eagerness?
The amenities are all those welcoming hospitality products that we can find when entering our hotel room (soap bar, comb, shower cap ...) and that the hotel housekeeping has put at our dispositin to please us and make our stay more pleasant, easy and comfortable .
These articles were developped to offer a superior well-being that the most outstanding hotels began to offer their clients. But do you know when the amenities are first started to offer in Spain? In the seventeenth century, with the opening of the hotel La Posada del Peine, the oldest hotel in Spain whose name refers to the first amenities offered in the country: a comb.
Seeing these free gifts arranged for us on a tray or basket when entering our room or bathroom is something that causes us a great joice, and that is that for the Spaniards the "free phenomenon" is something that causes furor, and the hotelier knows this.
That is why, although in Spain in some communities it is not mandatory by law that the hotel should offer amenities, for the hotelier it is of great satisfaction to provide them since it has expectations regarding competitiveness and differentiation with other hotel establishments, as well as in return of positive opinions and customer loyalty, among others. The hotelier knows the importance of these amenities details.
But to take away these free amenities to steal other elements of the hotel, there is only one distance. What happens with these amenities? Do people really need to take everything they get for their staying? These issues go back to history, when in La Posada del Peine this comb was already tied with a rope to the sink so that it could not be stolen.
The shampoo or gel bottles, the shaving razors, the toothbrush and even the sewing kit are gifts that the client can take without problem, but they are not the trays or baskets in which they are placed, nor the towels and hangers. And these amenities are not the only objects which disappear from the hotel room or bath room.
Yes, some customers also eager to take away with them the painting, sheets, blankets, pillows ... even light bulbs and batteries. And what about the sodas and spirits of the mini-bars. All this involves stealing, and Spain occupies the top positions in this bad practice.
Not only in the hotel rooms, the buffet, from which it is forbidden to take out food, is also another of the spaces in which customers fall into temptation: jars of jam and butter, cheeses, bread, fruit, cookies and even the elements of dishes or glasses leave the hotel premises in the hands of their new owners.
Although they are objects that are subsequently ignored and only accumulate and forgotten later, it does not matter, because it is free. We always want more, but there is no good way for all.
What do you think? Are we moving by the greed? Do you think that hotel establishments should reinforce their measures to prevent this kind of stealing?