Does a hotel check-in and check-out time impact the overall experience?
A fixed check-in time, long queues at the front desk, and constantly waiting for a room to be ready - these are three familiar major pain points that the majority of hotel guests have to grapple with!
Hotel check-in times might seem like a small detail in one’s travel plans, but understanding their significance can greatly impact the overall experience.
Imagine booking a hotel room for two days and thinking that each day you pay for, buys you 24 hours to stay in your room. Logically correct…but think again, because in actuality, that line of thinking is erroneous.
Check-in times refer to the designated period during which hotel guests can officially check into their rooms. Conversely, check-out times require guests to vacate their rooms on time, whether it’s at the designated checkout time or a previously agreed upon late checkout time. Check-in and check-out times are not fixed arbitrarily – they allow hotel housekeeping staff to ensure that rooms are properly cleaned, functional, restocked and prepared for incoming guests. Moreover, these timings help the hotel manage the flow of guests.
Back in the day, and I’m referring here to the 1970’s - an era where the hotel industry, and in particular, city hotels, collectively fell into a pattern that stuck unwaveringly to mid-day or early-afternoon check-ins and late-morning check-outs. Guests too, became accustomed to these time windows. During that time, I worked at the 5-star Hotel Lanka Oberoi in Colombo, where the check-in time was 12 noon and the check-out time was 11.00 am. This meant that the housekeeping brigade of this 566 room’s hotel had a one-hour gap to turn things around, meaning; convert dirty checked out rooms into a spotlessly clean vacant ones for the arriving hotel guests.
That gap has been steadily increasing since then. Check-in times that used to be 12 noon, have been progressively pushed back to 1.00 p.m. to 2.00 pm to 3.00 p.m. and in some hotels to 4.00 p.m. Check-out times that were 11.00 p.m. have advanced to 10.00 a.m. with certain properties, asking guests to vacate as early as 9.00 a.m.
What this means is that hotels have been reducing how long you can remain in your room when paying for a stay. For example, if one were to book a one-day stay at a hotel where the check-in time is 3.00 p.m. and the check-out 10.00 a.m., you end up paying for the full day’s rate for a 19-hour stay…lessened further- if you were to arrive after 3.00 p.m or leave the next day before 10.00 a.m.
You may be wondering now how this came to be. It’s due to several reasons. For starters, Housekeeping is a big part of that. Hotels have been squeezing housekeeping expenses by often employing as few room boys or maids as possible. Into this mix, add the Revenue managers who began to wielded yield management as a pricing strategy to maximise business performance. Have you observed that hotels sell their rooms on a “nightly basis”. That’s because Revenue managers tinker with the rates on a day-by-day (sometimes even on an hourly) basis - dependent on demand. A 24-hour clock from check-in to check-out causes difficulties in yield management forecasting and pricing.
Then it’s the airlines that also scuttled the decades old systems that hotel and guests relied on, by switching back to fewer flights, particularly after been grounded with post pandemic losses and now favouring early morning departures.
Say you plan to travel to a country that requires 4 -hours flying time. If your only available flight leaves at 7 am, then you will probably arrive at your destination and be ready to get to work or start that vacation by noon. But what are you supposed to do until 3 pm when you can check in to the hotel? Go to the hotel, drop off your luggage and then return in a few hours? Travelling from the airport to the hotel, then going somewhere in the city, and returning 3 hours later to the hotel, eats away your time as well as cost you more on taxi fare for the extra travel. What can one do when the hotel is unwilling to hold luggage for guests, because they lack the resources? Or when you wait until 3.00 pm. and your room isn't ready at 3 pm? Like many, you are likely to vent your frustrations on every social media platform!
How does one get arond the typical check-in and check-out rules without having to pay more? Look for a hotel that has a flexi-time policy that permits the guest to choose check-in and out. The Hoxton chain for example, offers all guests ‘Flexi Time’ – a complimentary, 24-hour check-in and checkout options, enabling guests to select a check-in time as early as 1 a.m. on the first day of their stay and a checkout time as late as midnight. The only stipulation is that the reservation must be made direct online at least 72 hours in advance of the stay. Flexy Time selections must be made at the time of booking. Unfortunately, not many hotels provide this option.
Will AI-powered future of hospitality allow guests to check in and out whenever they want while maintaining the cost savings that creative housekeeping scheduling can do to boost profits?
Time will tell.
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Customer Service Trainer and Ex-Hotelier
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