Tag: hotels
Big Food And Hotel Giants Trying To Peddle Plastic ‘Authenticity’

Big Food And Hotel Giants Trying To Peddle Plastic ‘Authenticity’

Near my home in Austin, Texas, there is a great, old refurbished motel that I recommend to people when they come to visit our fair city. It not only is right on the famed Congress Avenue but also has a keep-it-real attitude that is expressed right on its iconic marquee: “No additives, no preservatives, corporate-free since 1938.”

The good news is that more and more businesses across the country are adopting this attitude, providing a buy-local, un-corporate, anti-chain alternative for customers. Food shoppers and restaurant goers, for example, have made a huge shift in recent years away from the likes of McDonald’s, Pepsi, and Taco Bell, preferring upstart, independent outfits with names like “The Corner,” “Caleb’s Kola,” and “US Taco Co.”

But uh-oh, guess who owns those little local alternatives? Right — McDonald’s, PepsiCo, and Taco Bell. Leave it to ethically challenged, profiteering monopolists to grab such value-laden terms as “genuine,” “local,” and “honest,” empty them of any authenticity, then hurl them back at consumers as shamefully deceptive marketing scams.

In Huntington Beach, California, US Taco Co. poses as a hip surfer haunt, with a colorful “Day of the Dead” Mexican skull as its logo. The airy place peddles lobster tacos and other fare at $3 or $4 each — very un-fast-foody. Nowhere is it whispered that this is a big-chain outlet, created by a group of Taco Bell insiders. They even usurped the enterprising word “entrepreneur,” stripped it of its outsider connotation, and twisted it into an ugly corporate vanity, calling themselves “intrapreneurs.”

Fast-food restaurants are not the only ones that play this profitable imitation game. As everyone who travels a lot soon learns, when you stay in the hotels of the big chains, it’s easy to forget where you are, since they are all so alike, offering all the charm of Noplace, USA.

This disorienting sameness has become even more dizzying in recent years as the chains have merged and conglomerated. Weary travelers might choose to stay overnight in one of the Residence Inn hotels, a Courtyard, the TownePlace Suites, or even splurge for a night in a ritzy Ritz-Carlton. In fact, though, whichever one you choose, you’re in a Marriott — the $14 billion-a-year combine that owns all of the above chains, along with 15 others. Marriott is among the world’s 10 largest hoteliers that have a combined 113 different chains in their crowded stable of brand names.

Naturally, as uniformity and conglomeration have taken over the industry, a consumer rebellion has erupted, with more and more travelers — especially younger ones — seeking out independent hotels, unique inns and local B&Bs. They prefer the un-corporate places that have cool names like the Moxy, Canopy, and Vib. But oh, crud, guess what. All three of those are chains of “hip” hotels that opened in the past year and are owned respectively by Marriott, Hilton, and Best Western.

Known in the industry as “lifestyle hotels,” these fake-independent lodgings are the hot new niche for mega-conglomerates trying to nab travelers in search of authenticity. “The big hotel chains are in the business of pretending they aren’t big chains,” says Pauline Frommer, editor of the well-regarded Frommer’s travel guides. “They want you to think they are boutiques.”

Sneaky, sneaky! But the real problem with these fabricators of corporatized authenticity is that reality will win out in the end. Small and local has a genuine feel and flavor that the imitators can’t sustain as they sprawl out into 1,000 and then 10,000 stores. And as they do that, it becomes obvious to customers that they’ve been duped — and that’s not a good marketing strategy. We dupes will not only quickly see that we’re being sold plastic “authenticity” but also be ticked off about it.

To find out more about Jim Hightower and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com. 

Photo: Matt Weibo via Flickr

Marriott’s Shameful Hotel Tipping Scam

Marriott’s Shameful Hotel Tipping Scam

As an old popular song from the 1970s asks, what do you get if you “work your fingers right down to the bone?” Bony fingers.

As the hardworking housekeepers for the sprawling Marriott chain of hotels know, that’s more than a cute song lyric; it’s the truth. Mostly women, these “room attendants,” as they’re called, are paid a poverty wage of barely $8 an hour by this hugely profitable lodging conglomerate to perform a very hard, physical job. Compelled to do very heavy lifting at unsafe speeds, they suffer the highest injury rate in the so-called “hospitality” industry. Some two-thirds of them have to take pain medication just to get through their day of heaving 100-pound mattresses, stooping to clean floors and toilets and twisting to readjust furniture in 15 to 20 rooms per shift.

Yet, Marriott’s CEO publicly hails the very women he exploits as “the heart of the house,” saying his chain likes to express its appreciation to them with “special recognition events” during International Housekeepers Week. Yes, exploited room refreshers are not rewarded with a living wage, but with their very own congratulatory week — how great is that?

Marriott is the corporate domain of the Royal Marriott Dynasty. The family was a big backer of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, which so sordidly tried to divide Americans between the few noble “Makers” (like the Marriotts) and the ignoble “Takers” — i.e. workers and retirees. The chain has 4,000 hotels with 690,000 rooms in 78 countries, operating under 18 different brand names (including Ritz-Carlton, Renaissance, Gaylord, Courtyard, Fairfield Inn and Residence Inn, just to name a few). It hauled in nearly $13 billion in revenue last year.

The extravagantly rich Marriott domain is a miserly employer that fattens its large profits by holding its hard-working housekeepers down with poverty-level wages.

Now, enter Lady Maria Shriver, grandly offering a plan to boost the pay of Marriott’s 22,000 North American housekeepers. A pay raise, perhaps? Oh, tut-tut — those who run in the Shriver-Marriott circles of wealth prefer charitable gestures to straightforward populist remedies.

Instead, Shriver’s foundation has “partnered” with the far-flung hotel empire to request that its customers pay a little extra in the form of tips to supplement Marriott’s low-wage stinginess. Reducing its housekeepers to begging for alms, the corporate giant has adopted Shriver’s “nobles oblige” program (gaily titled “The Envelope, Please”) by putting an envelope in each room asking the customer to subsidize its employees’ wages. The envelope even lays a little guilt trip on customers, saying that, “The hard work (of room attendants) is many times overlooked when it comes to tipping.”

Marriott celebrated International Housekeepers Week this year by proudly announcing its “new tipping initiative” — urging Marriott’s customers “to express their gratitude by leaving tips and notes of thanks for hotel room attendants.” Shriver says she hopes the voluntary tips “will make these women feel seen and validated.” Is that sweet or what?

Does the Lady Maria at least urge that this customer subsidy of Marriott’s miserable low wages be the standard 15-20 percent tip we give at restaurants? No, one to five bucks per night’s stay is recommended. Let’s see, at about $250 a day for a Marriott room, even a $5 tip is a sad 2 percent expression of “gratitude.” As for customers leaving a little thank-you note, imagine trying to buy a baloney sandwich with that.

How about this: Instead of paying $9 million a year to Marriott’s CEO, make him rely on customer notes and tips — and see how validated and appreciated he feels. Maybe that will show him that this is a disgraceful and embarrassing exercise of corporate feudalism. Come on, Marriott — stop playing Lord of the Manor and just pay a decent wage!

To find out more about Jim Hightower, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.

Photo: LA Wad via Flickr

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Best Hotel Alternatives

Best Hotel Alternatives

Temporary lodging for travelers has been changing in the U.S. since before we became a nation. But in just the last century, with the rise of automobile and then air travel, overnight accommodations have become a huge corporate enterprise.

Hotel empires with names like Hilton, Marriott, Holiday Inn, Motel 6, Best Western, and Ritz-Carlton have entered the traveler’s vocabulary, while once ubiquitous brands such as Howard Johnson have been relegated to memory.

Today, places to stay are still evolving and the hotel alternative is garnering the buzz. Names such as AirBnB, Couchsurfing, VRBO (Vacation Rental By Owner), and HomeAway are making the headlines and raking in our travel bucks.

Lifehacker has the skinny on the Best Hotel Alternatives (Besides AirBnB) and they want you to know that while AirBnB has garnered a lot of publicity, they are not the only hotel alternative out there.

Of course if you can swing it you can rent a mansion or a villa, but hotel alternatives may work out cheaper than staying in a pricey hotel–even if you are travelling with family or friends.  But that’s not the only reason to explore these options. Hotel alternatives are typically located in residential rather than commercial areas, which makes it  a great way to spend time getting to know a place in a very different, often more intimate way.

After all, traveling should be about discovery; if you want things to be exactly the same as your day to day life, you really might as well save money and stay home.

Photo: Wikipedia

Brunei Denies Plans To Purchase New York Hotels

Brunei Denies Plans To Purchase New York Hotels

London (AFP) — The sultan of Brunei denied on Tuesday media reports that he was mulling the purchase of three landmark hotels including New York’s Plaza.

The reports had sparked a protest by the U.S. gay lobby group, Human Rights Campaign, as Brunei plans to implement tough punishments for same-sex acts.

“Neither His Majesty, the Brunei Investment Agency, nor the government of Brunei are involved in any way in the purchase of the Grosvenor House in London or the Plaza and Dream Downtown hotels in New York,” said a spokesman for the sultan on Tuesday.

The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, had reported on Monday that the sultan had offered about $2.0 billion to buy the three plush hotels.

AFP Photo

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