Hotel Mindcrack

Hey everyone. Rather than a recap of the day (which would be pretty boring today), I want to talk about something kind of random: hotels. I wouldn't have guessed it beforehand, but I ended up going on quite a few trips that included a hotel stay while working at the Missouri Academy. The most common scenario was that a team that I oversaw/mentored was traveling to some big competition and we would stay in a local hotel the night beforehand.

Most of the time, my group and I were in a hotel for less than 18 hours, so it felt a little off to have so much in the hotel room. Now, I don't want to suggest that I wanted to bring my own bedsheets, but the amount of things in the bathroom reminded me that hotels primarily cater to couples and families. The typical inventory for a hotel bathroom would include two full towels, a footmat, two hand towels, two washcloths, a bar of hand soap, and the obligatory small bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and lotion.

I have not worked at a hotel/motel/resort before, but part of me thinks that when a client checks out, housekeepers come into the room, and take everything out to wash before the next client. So in a way, I would feel bad because I would barely use a towel and the soap in the very short time I would be in the room and, you know, conscious, when I suspected that everything would be washed the following day. I think part of this stems from hearing a story about hotels that have to throw out all of the open bottles of shampoo and bars of soap for sanitary reasons. I do understand the health concerns, but it feels like something could be done to reduce a hotel's carbon footprint.

An idea I thought of during one trip was having a "Short Solo Visit" option. In my mind, this would be designed for solo travels (or like me, chaperones that would be staying in a room solo) who are only going to be in a room for a very short time. There would be still sheets and stuff, but the bathroom would have a more simplistic array of stuff. That could hopefully lead to fewer loads of laundry and less expense/by-product for the hotel. My idea also included chipping a few bucks off of the hotel rate to help incentivize the option.

On the other hand, I know that would be a logistic hurdle to jump, especially since this would be a new thing. I'm sure it would be a challenge for one hotel chain to try to introduce this new part of the reservation or check-in process. Plus, since the hotel industry is primarily designed for couples or groups, it's no guarantee that this idea would be used enough to be worthwhile. So while I think it would be a nice idea for the environment, I'm not going to hold my breath.

Therein ends my random thoughts for the day. I had considered blogging about the idea while Michelle and I were in Minnesota, but it made more sense for those blogs to focus on the road trip itself. Jumping gears to the future, tomorrow will be One Voice, and Parents' Day.

DFTBA