I've noticed in several hotels that hair dryers are no longer left in the bathroom - they hand them out at the front desk on request now. Is this widespread or just at budget chains?
In what price categories of hotels have you seen this?
It's actually a trend, but not quite what it seems at first glance. Yeah, there's savings involved - hair dryers go missing, break down, get taken as souvenirs. But that's not really the main thing. Hotels move hair dryers to the front desk also to control who uses them: you can track theft, catch electrical issues, monitor the equipment's condition. Plus it's easier to organize maintenance - you don't have to check every room daily.
I've seen it not just in budget chains. At mid-range and even expensive hotels it happens, just there they hand over the dryer faster and the service is more polite. Although, of course, at luxury places the hair dryers usually stay in the rooms, because they have different clientele and a different service level.
Here's what matters: if a hotel gives you a hair dryer on request but it's bad or broken - that's a minus for comfort, don't confuse it with pure savings. Worth checking when you check in whether it even works, and if there's a problem - report it to the front desk right away instead of dealing with claims later.
When did you start noticing this - recently or have you been seeing this trend for a while now?
Actually, it's a combination of both factors. Yeah, some places are cutting costs - hairdryers get stolen, broken, and having them available on request reduces losses. But at the same time, it's becoming standard even in bigger hotels because it's just more convenient to manage equipment that way. When a hairdryer's in the room, you have to check it regularly, repair it, sometimes replace it after heavy use. When everything's handed out at the front desk, it's easier to keep track of the condition and quickly swap out a broken one.
I've noticed they do this in both budget chains and three-star hotels, especially if it's a chain hotel with clearly developed standards. In expensive hotels, hairdryers stay in the rooms - they figure guest convenience matters more than controlling inventory. So there's no single answer here: it's mostly about efficiency, but in the budget segment there's definitely a higher cost-saving aspect to it.
I've seen this at hotels of all kinds, not just budget ones. At one decent chain hotel in the city center, they'd hand out hair dryers at the front desk, and at a super cheap hostel out in the provinces, there was just one per floor sitting in the hallway.
In my opinion, it's really about saving money and logistics at the same time. On one hand, people just steal hair dryers from rooms or break them - it's easier to replace one communal one than to keep swapping out stolen ones. On the other hand, if you control who gets it, you can track down whoever damaged the device and avoid paying for extra cleaning. Plus, it's easier to monitor the equipment's condition through the front desk - hand it out, get it back, and you can immediately see what happened to it.
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