Unfriendly Hotel Staff Creates a Revenue-Killing Ripple Effect

Staff unfriendliness tops the list of things that most irritate hotel guests.

On a recent road trip to Minneapolis, Minnesota, I decided to leave a day early and spend the night at a hotel a few hours from my destination to get a jump on the 450-mile drive. The extra hotel night wasn’t part of my trip budget, which included two nights at a fairly expensive hotel.

I planned to stay at a modest hotel with a rate under $100 for the extra night. After driving for four hours, I pulled up to the front door of a well-known budget hotel chain. I’d stayed at this chain before, with decent experiences. But I’d also encountered rooms belonging to the same chain that were flawed, as in hard beds, soggy carpet under the sink and smelly hallways.

So, before paying, I sometimes ask politely to see the room when the hotel is a budget hotel. At this hotel, I asked the clerk nicely if I could just take a quick look at the room before paying. He reacted rudely, obviously annoyed, and shoved the key card toward me with some massive attitude.

As I walked down the hall, I turned to see him glaring at me with contempt, and he continued this until I turned away.

The room was clean, well-maintained and quite nice overall. But I couldn’t bring myself to pay for a room at a hotel where I was treated so rudely. So, I declined the room and stayed at a Best Western down the street, even though the room rate was $60 higher.

Honestly, the rooms at the two hotels were fairly equal in quality. The clerk’s unfriendly behavior at the budget hotel is the only thing that drove me away. It turns out I’m not alone in finding unfriendly service an irritation that makes me want to spend my money elsewhere.

Around 62 percent of adults surveyed say that unfriendly hotel staff irritates them the most, followed by having to wait at the front desk (38 percent), outdated room technology (34 percent) and service delays (31 percent), according to “Hotels at Face Value,” a report from hotel operations platform Alice.

Unfriendly staff also has a direct effect on hotel bookings and negative reviews.

“There is a direct connection between [staff] friendliness and bookings,” says the Alice report. “The top two influencers for guest decisions [when booking] are ratings/reviews (59 percent) and friendliness (49 percent).”

Another study from Expedia, “The Big Decision: How Travelers Choose Where to Stay,” also found that reviews and guest rating strongly influence hotel choices, even when independent hotels compete against well-known brands.

“Travelers are willing to pay more for hotels with higher guest ratings and considerably more so than for premium branding,” according to the Expedia study. “Independent hotels today can compete against their branded brethren, cost efficiently, by delivering a better experience. Gone are the days when brands solely drive decision, and today peer reviews and guest ratings wield stronger influence.”

Since I didn’t stay at the budget hotel, I didn’t leave a review about my bad experience. Admittedly, I was tired from driving, which probably influenced my response to being treated rudely when I asked nicely to simply see the room before booking. I just didn’t like the way I was treated, so I moved on to another hotel and this hotel lost revenue.

“Knowing that a majority of guests pay the most attention to staff friendliness and attentiveness, hoteliers cannot afford to forget the art of hospitality,” said Alice co-founder and President Alex Shashou in a statement from “Hotels’ Digital Divide,” a separate Alice report.

“Hospitality is a feeling guests get, and personalization is how it is delivered. If hotels don’t want to be viewed as a commodity, then they need to stop treating their guests like one.”