Update, 7/23: IHG hotels will require face masks in US/Canada hotels starting on 7/27 as well.
Update, 7/22: After Hyatt announced this rule will only apply in US/Canada hotels, Marriott has decided to only implement this change in their US/Canada hotels.
Update, 7/21: Hyatt will match Marriott’s face mask policy starting on 7/27 as well, but it will only apply in the US and Canada.
Originally posted on 7/20:
Marriott announced that they will require all employees and guests to wear face masks worldwide.
The requirement applies in all indoor public spaces of Marriott hotels and will go into effect on 7/27.
I’d expect other chains to match those requirements as well, just as happened in the airline industry.
But I have an ask for the hotel industry.
Chain after chain announced last year that they will switch from personal toiletries to shared bulk dispensers in 2020.
Those dispensers creeped me out before COVID-19 as anyone can put anything in them and indeed, sick people have put some pretty gross stuff in them. I don’t want to think of the people that used the shower before me and those dispensers are a reminder of that. Plus, how often are they actually cleaned? Some refillable dispensers in hotels have been shown to have mold and bacteria growing in them.
But those plans seem downright foolish in a world where we don’t want to touch surfaces used by others in fear of spreading a deadly pandemic. Especially surfaces like dispensers that are difficult to properly clean.
Hotels should announce that those plans have been shelved. Grocery stores have banned reusable shopping bags. Going green with reusable high-touch items like toiletry dispensers aren’t compatible with consumer needs in the COVID-19 era.
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24 Comments On "[Update: Matched By Hyatt And IHG] Marriott Will Require All Employees And Guests To Wear Face Masks In The US/Canada; Can We Ditch Bulk Toiletry Dispensers As Well?"
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We went to the Inbal in Yerushalayim a couple weeks ago. Besides the Ahava individual toiletries, they gave out really nice Corona kits filled with several types of masks, bottles of hand sanitizer, gloves, and wipes. Really nice touch.
Agreed 100%. Those dispensers needed to go BEFORE COVID, they DEFINITELY need to be removed now.
Please- as soon as it costs them a penny more all the “health and safety” of guests are out the window. No way they are going to get rid of the nasty Public dispensers
They never required masks for health and safety. It was 100% a marketing decision to make people feel comfortable.
The dispensers were never about going green either also just an excuse to save money.
I stayed at Brooklyn marriott last week and the toiletries are the individual type.
Went to a delta by Marriott last night . Aside from masks they are extremely restrictive about the pool . 4 passes perRoom. And if you are more than four people then you have to pay $15 for an extra Pool pass. The pool closes at seven and you only get two hours to swim. Also you are only allowed to use the pool on the day that you check in not on the day that you check out.
Just an excuse to grab some more money.
Amen Dan!
COVID doesn’t sit in SOAP. And you can wipe down a container with disinfectant, the same way you need to wipe down shower knobs. Please don’t use the pandemic as an excuse to push for something that you want for reasons entirely separate from the pandemic.
lol
A funny thing about these dispensers; you don’t put your hand in and grab the soap…you press a button – the button CAN be contaminated…
But since you’re about to wash your hands with soap, any contamination that you pick up will be immediately washed down the drain. That is, in the unlikely event that the button is contaminated in the first place, which is no more likely than anything else (included an individual bottle) being contaminated. If you’re going to worry about surface contamination, perhaps you should worry more about the surfaces that you touch when you’re not about to wash your hands.
Arne needs a new shirt! That linen isn’t looking very good
Recently at a Marriott hotel, we all were distancing etc but then the soap in the shower ran out. So they sent someone into our room, where we don’t need to wear masks etc, to change the soap. Rooms are small so if you’re worried about health and you want to be sooooooo careful, leave mini bottles at the door, or always use mini bottles!
Another problem with the dispensers, running out of soap while in the shower!
Is Hyatts requirement only for USA and Canada or worldwide?
“IMPORTANT UPDATE: Following American Hotel & Lodging Association’s (AHLA) recent announcement of its “Safe Stay Guest Checklist”—and following medical expert guidance to help reduce the spread of COVID-19—all Hyatt hotels in the U.S. and Canada will require face coverings within indoor public areas beginning Monday, July 27, for the foreseeable future.”
I agree that it is poor practice using pandemic response to advocate for something you want that is fairly unrelated. I am disappointed by such discourse.
I don’t hate or love the bulk dispensers. Their buttons are probably easier than mini-bottles to get housekeeping to clean during the normal cleaning between guests. The mini-bottles can easily have their exteriors inadvertently contaminated through routine guest handling, same as the buttons on the bulk dispensers. If you’re concerned about previous guests maliciously contaminating the contents of bulk dispensers, the contents of mini-bottles are extremely easy for a malicious guest to contaminate and then leave for the next guest to use. Whatever reasons that malicious guest might have for their actions, contaminating the contents of a mini-bottle gives them very high likelihood that one of the future guests will use a lot of their contaminant. We could resolve the concern about deliberate mini-bottle contamination by demanding that hotels replace all mini-bottles every time, but that seems excessive.
Your mask protects me as much or more than it protects you. Therefore it makes sense for the various levels of governments, the hotel management company, the hotel chain, etc., to push for broadly promulgated and reasonably strongly enforced policies that apply to everybody to achieve collective action.
have you seen videos of room cleaning staff using the white face towels to rub toilet seats and floor as well as drinking glasses all in one setting? they weren’t supposed to do that yet people still did it, hopefully not all of them. what i mean is, it’s tough to enforce regulations especially when it’s not in the public under everyone’s eyes.
these days i have observed that, true, if everyone is wearing a mask, then the one carrying the virus would have kept from transmitting the virus while wearing a mask. it looks pretty straightforward until exceptions that often happen daily in real life. in real life, you only need one virus carrier to not wear a mask (or not wear it properly, maybe unknowingly) to foul up the whole safety equation. he or she sneezes or coughs then droplets fall on to a meat package, which is then picked up and put back down a number of times at the supermarket by shoppers already wearing masks. their hands may wipe sweat, take out a tissue to wipe eyes, or as a safe gesture to sneeze into. it’s all possible to get infected that way. and another case study has shown that one sneezing uncovered in one aisle can spread the airborne floating droplets to a distance of two aisles on either side. so those people in those aisles even if wearing masks, the outside of their masks would have been contaminated. these days a lot of people touch the outside of the masks to adjust them, “thousands” of times a day, all because they did not think or “learned” that it was unsafe to do so. they hang them off the driving mirror and droplets could fall off and float around in car. etc. etc.
what i mean is, it only takes one person to not wear a mask to create such chaos. so wearing masks seem only reliable under a very controlled environment, such as a lab or in hospital icu etc.
@dan let’s start a petition. Btw I’m starting to run out of those shampoos I’ve picked up in the good years.
@PH I am 100% behind masks. The bulk soap dispensers are a LARGE issue, as they are NOT getting cleaned (see recent trip reports from many bloggers). They sometimes are refilled with unknown items (sometimes water, sometimes the wrong thing (conditioner in the shampoo etc, and sometimes who knows what), there is no way to check the validity of the product that’s in them (buy an expensive brands bottle, and refill it with generic shampoo). In the days of COVID, this IS the very thing those of us that rallied against them were worried about. Small bottles/envelopes/etc of product mean they are new and unmolested. Large bottles mounted to the wall do not.
Why would anyone go to a hotel now? It’s asking for trouble.
Is there an updated post on Marriott’s policy for hotel certificate extensions?
https://www.dansdeals.com/points-travel/master-list-hotel-cancellation-waivers-nights-points-extensions-choice-hilton-hyatt-ihg-marriott/
Thanks. That 1/31/2021 extension is starting to look tight