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No Time for Stupid Rules
By Michael Alan Hamlin
May 3, 2004
Tired from a long day with clients, a friend of mine
returned to his five-star Makati hotel one day last week carrying
a bag of fried chicken he'd picked up from a fast-food franchise
across the street. He had plans for a quick, simple meal in his
room, and then an early night. But fate - and incompetence - had
other things in store for the tuckered out consultant.
As he entered the hotel one of the security personnel told my friend
that she would have a bellboy delivery his bag of chicken to his
room. Assuming that the guard was just being polite, my friend declined
the offer, saying he would hold onto his precious bag of chicken.
Still polite, the guard then said that it is hotel policy that food
from outside can't be carried in by guests, and must be delivered
to the room by a bellboy via the service elevator.
The consultant was surprised because he's been carrying fast food
into five-star Makati hotels for years, and never been stopped.
So he asked to see the duty manager, who promptly confirmed the
hotel's policy of not allowing guests to carry food into the hotel
themselves. "I'm sure you understand our policy," the
manager concluded politely. And my friend responded, "No, I
don't, but I'm sure you understand that my policy is not to stay
in hotels with stupid rules." He followed up with, "I'm
checking out."
The manager and the security guard, according to my friend, appeared
to have a difficult time processing that response. Apparently they
were surprised - stunned might be more accurate - that a hotel guest
would threaten to check out simply because he was asked not to carry
a bag of chicken up to his room. Once she recovered from the initial
shock, the manager offered to make an exception, and allow him to
keep his chicken firmly in his possession.
"No, it's too late," my friend responded as he turned
toward the front desk. With the manager trailing after and looking
on, he asked that his bill be prepared while he packed his things.
He left the duty manager standing at the counter. In his room a
few minutes later, there was a knock at the door, which the consultant
answered. And there stood the duty manager, a bellboy with the bag
of chicken in hand, and a security gaurd.
Eyeing the security guard my friend asked the duty manager, "Did
you think I was going to get violent over a quarter of a chicken?"
The duty manager - politely as always - explained that it was also
hotel policy to have a security guard accompany executives visiting
guests' rooms. Then she tried to hand over the chicken, which the
consultant again refused, saying that he had made up his mind to
go without his chicken as well as the room for the evening.
A few minutes later he had checked out and was heading for another
hotel where he paid a higher rate in exchange for not having to
put up with stupid rules. Apparently, the management of the hotel
he checked out of feels that guests carrying up bags of takeout
food give other guests ideas. This supposedly has a negative impact
on the hotel's restaurant outlet and room service revenues.
Although food brought in is supposed to be brought up to guests
rooms via the service elevators, the sight of a bellboy carrying
bags of fast food around the lobby and the hallways would almost
seem to institutionalize the hotel's acquiescence to the fact that
not all guests want to eat hotel food, and in fact that the hotel
is fine with this, as evidence by its polite insistence on delivering
fast food by hand to guests' rooms.
Hotels often get away with this kind of boorish behavior because
they have little repeat business. While a company may have a corporate
account for rooms, the executives actually staying in the rooms
quite likely do so infrequently, and often only once. And once a
guest is checked in, it normally takes a great deal to irritate
one to the degree that he will check out in exasperation. The thin-skinned
consultant was an exception to that rule, not the norm.
Everything in life and business involves tradeoffs, and this hotel
obviously believes that a few bruised feelings is a fair price to
pay for forcing guests to eat in the hotel or order room service.
But I doubt that this is what happens. While I haven't - and won't
- bother to study this practice seriously, I would imagine that
guests accosted for bringing food into the hotel are embarrassed,
cross, and determined to eat just about anywhere else.
I would also imagine that they - like my friend - will tell the
story over and over about how the hotel relies on stupid rules to
offend and embarrass their guests. And I would suspect that this
will discourage people who hear this story from ever considering
a stay - should they be in Manila in this case - at the offending
hotel. As a result, the hotel looses not just revenue from its food
outlets and room service, but the room revenue as well. As well
as much good will, of course.
Considering that the hotel in question offers rates considerably
below the competitions' precisely because it has trouble attracting
guests suggests that whoever comes up with such stupid rules be
put on a leash, fast.
(Michael Alan Hamlin is the managing
director of consultancy TeamAsia and the author of three books on
Asian economies and companies. His latest book is Marketing Asian
Places, of which he is a co-author (Wiley, 2001), and he is currently
at work on High Visibility: The Making and Marketing of Asian Professionals
into Celebrities. Write him at mahamlin@teamasia.com.).
Copyright © 2003 Michael Alan
Hamlin. All Rights Reserved.
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