Hotel’s Classy Incentive to Decline Housekeeping Turndown Service: Resort Credit

The Four Seasons Lanai Offers $300 resort credit to decline housekeeping's nightly turndown service.

Even Luxury Hotels Have Been Challenged by High Guest Demand and a Labor Shortage, and this includes the Four Seasons Lanai, which we recently visited. Lanai has just over 3100 inhabitants, so needless to say, labor, including housekeeping, is at a premium. This is particularly the case when the resort, which has over 200 rooms and suites, is operating at or near full capacity, which was the situation over our spring break stay.

While Hyatt and other chain hotels have experimented with offering loyalty points to guests who decline daily housekeeping, and lower end hotels such as most Hilton brands have either eliminated daily housekeeping or made housekeeping available on request only, that's of course not what Four Seasons, as a luxury 5-star hotel and resort company, has done.

Instead, at check-in, we were invited to consider whether we wanted to keep evening turndown service, or choose a $300 resort credit by declining it; that is, forego the second housekeeping service. Since we weren't even sure if we'd take advantage of daily housekeeping (since both my husband and I had work to do and were going to be in the room a fair amount), let alone turndown service, it was an easy decision. We were also offered a choice of daily housekeeping times for the first housekeeping service, morning and afternoon, to suit our schedule.

The credit for declining turndown service covered a lovely dinner at Nobu Lanai and our son's zip lining experience at the Adventure Park.

Miso Black Cod, Nobu Lanai, Four Seasons Lanai

Hamachi Kama, Nobu Lanai, Four Seasons Lanai

Zip Line at Lanai Adventure Park, Four Seasons Lanai

Note to other luxury hotels: if you're finding it challenging to provide the twice daily housekeeping service that was industry standard pre-pandemic, consider the guest incentive strategy. Some guests will happily reduce their demand on your housekeeping team's labor with the right incentive, and are much more likely to have a positive experience with the reduced service because they chose it willingly, rather than perceiving it as a service reduction that was forced on them.

Has a luxury hotel or resort offered you an attractive incentive to decline turndown service or daily housekeeping, and if so, what was it?

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