Articles
Hotels selling everything but the room service
By Judy Colbert
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, September 16, 2001
Joan and Jordan Fainberg stayed at the W Hotel in New Orleans last fall and "slept so well we didn't want to get out of bed," says Joan Fainberg. A catalog in their room advertised the mattress and other items the hotel was offering for sale.
"We talked about buying everything that went on the bed then, but didn't," she says. But she remembered it when it came time to buy her husband a Valentine's Day present.
"I bought the king-size bedding, two sets of sheets and cases so I wouldn't have to immediately wash them and put them back on. I bought everything -- pillows, down comforter, the duvet cover, everything," she says.
Time was when hotel guests might check out with an occasional ashtray or hotel-monogrammed towel as a souvenir of their stay. Some hotels responded by removing their logo from smaller items hoping to discourage the pilfering. But when upscale hotels started providing plush terry bathrobes, guests sometimes took them whether or not they carried a prestigious logo -- despite discreet notes left in the pocket pointing out that the robes could be purchased at the gift shop.
These days, it's easier to take home part of the hotel honestly. National chains and local hotels are getting further into the retail business, marketing products from mattresses to bath oils and bedding to lamps -- just about anything that isn't nailed down.
The hotels know they're building a loyal clientele when guests like the furnishings well enough to buy them.
Sharon and Edward Milkey of Greenfield, Mass., have had some 10 beds in the 20 years of their marriage, all in pursuit of relief for his chronic neck problems.
Then Sharon Milkey stayed at the Westin hotel in Stamford, Conn., while traveling on business, and slept in the Westin's Heavenly Bed. "Ed," she told her husband, a locomotive engineer for Amtrak, "you have to try this bed."
"We liked the bed and bought it about 10 months ago," says Sharon Milkey, an educator for Matrix Co., a national company that makes beauty products for hair salons. "It's like being in a cloud." Not only does it have a pillow top, but also it is found on both surfaces of the bed so it can be flipped over for even wear. It also comes with a separate down pillow top that goes on the mattress and under the sheet, and a comforter.