Like something out of Fawlty Towers, but with a garish pink logo on the side of a pristine white building, a new player has entered the hotel game. Along with the paint scheme, Tune Hotels, owned by a Malaysian hospitality group, is about to open its doors to its inaugural London based hotel this month, but it’s the way it intends to do business which has gotten the hotel industry in a bit of a tizz.
Unlike other hotels that charge standard night rates and include their services within the price, Tune hotels are looking to become the “Ryanair” of hotels by charging customers for what they use. To wit, if you want to dry your hair after a shower, use of the hairdryer costs £2.00. Oh, and if you want a towel in your room, that’ll be an additional £1.00. Standard rates for a room come in at a very reasonable £35.00 per night, but with all of the extra costs that you could incur, it could end up costing you more to stay in than an airport hotel.
The most absurd charge is the £7.50 extra you’ll have to pay to have your room cleaned. Now, personally speaking, I couldn’t care less how I leave a hotel room for the next guest, but presumably leaving it untidy would not be acceptable. So you have a choice, either clean it yourself (it’s not known if this includes making the bed) or pay the fee. When you compare it to, say, a reasonable Gatwick airport hotel with all of the standard things you would expect, the price is suddenly not very competitive after all.
Tune Hotels’ chief executive Mark Lankester said: “It’s all about choice. We say consumers should assemble the experience as they see fit.” Well that may be so, but it goes against the mould of those expecting a certain experience when they pay for their hotel room.
There is no word on how ‘optional’ these additional charges are, or when customers are likely to be billed for them, so expect some pretty interesting stories arising from check out time to pop up on our radar in September. I couldn’t find out how much the toilet roll is or if it comes as part of the £35 standard rate fee either, so traveller beware!
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I’ve clarified on the room cleaning charge. FYI:
- Every guest checks into a clean room
- The room is cleaned FOC every 3rd day of your stay; so if for e.g. you checked in on Monday and stayed for 4 nights, checking out on Friday, the room would be cleaned FOC on Thursday.
- It is only if the guest wants to have an ADDITIONAL room cleaning in between the Monday (s)he checks in and the Thursday that the hotel provides the service FOC, that the GBP 7.50 comes into play