It seems everywhere we turn; we're being confronted with the option to leave a tip. In this month’s "Dear Eugene," we explore the question of whether tipping is really necessary when staying at a hotel.
Inspired by our intrepid founder, Eugene Fodor, Dear Eugene is a monthly series in which we invite readers to ask us their top travel questions. Each month, we’ll tap travel experts to answer your questions with the hopes of demystifying the more complicated parts of travel. Send your questions to [email protected] for a chance to have them answered in a future story.
Dear Eugene, When my husband and I stay at hotels, we debate whether to tip housekeeping. For shorter stays, we’ll opt against daily housekeeping as I keep our room tidy anyway, but when it comes to checking out, my husband insists on leaving a tip covering each day of our stay. If we don’t ask for daily housekeeping and keep our room clean, do we really have to tip housekeeping?
Let’s get one thing clear from the beginning: you never have to tip anybody. Tips, also called gratuities, are by their very nature discretionary—they’re given entirely at the behest of the tipper in recognition of excellent service. If tips are required, they’re not tips—they’re a service charge.
Tipping is a time-honored practice that is hotly debated in the modern world. The origin of the tip is also debated, but it’s generally recognized as having begun in the 1700s in Europe in the hospitality context. In the era before hotels, the aristocracy often lodged at the estates of friends and acquaintances, either for social visits or while traveling. This created extra work for the estate’s domestic staff, who would have to serve both the guests and whatever servants they brought with them.
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For their part, the aristocrats who owned the estate would furnish the meals and the wine, but the guests would chip in money for the household staff whose salaries generally covered everyday work—not the extra work created by overnight guests (you weren’t expected to tip just to drop in for lunch).
Maggie Smith’s penny-pinching character grumbles about this in the 2001 film Gosford Park: “By the time I’ve left something for the butler, the housekeeper, and the maids, I might as well have taken a suite at The Ritz,” she quips (the film is set in the 1930s, by which time hotels also existed, but it wasn’t customary then to tip hotel workers for performing their regular duties).
Without an aristocracy of their own, Americans in the mid-19th century attempted to project status and wealth by imitating the affectations of the British upper class, and tipping was one of them. Today, tipping habits vary by country. It’s become an integral practice in the United States, where many food service workers rely heavily on tips for income, while in other countries—including much of Europe and the Asia/Pacific Region—tipping is either uncommon or completely taboo.
Housekeepers (also called room attendants) are some of the hardest-working and lowest-paid employees in a hotel. The term “maid” is anachronistic—a throwback to English tradition that domestic housekeeping staff were always unmarried young women. They’re also some of the least-often tipped.
Some years ago, Marriott Hotels renewed the debate about tipping by leaving envelopes in guestrooms for guests to tip housekeeping staff. Guests largely pushed back, saying that it looked too much like an attempt to avoid paying their housekeepers fairly. However, there were some guests who appreciated the nudge, saying they didn’t realize they could—or should—leave a tip for their housekeeper.
First, be sure to check the customs in the area you’re visiting. Hotel workers will gladly accept tips in much of North America, but it’s less common in some other parts of the world. For example, hospitality workers in some parts of the Asia/Pacific region may even refuse or return attempts to tip.
Should You Tip if You Decline Daily Housekeeping?
That depends. If you think the gratuity isn’t warranted because you’re saving the housekeepers’ work, it’s a bit more complicated than that. One of the drivers of the targeted hotel strikes in several US cities is the practice of allowing guests to decline daily cleaning, which can result in unreliable hours for housekeeping staff, who may be sent home early if not enough guests request daily room cleaning. Housekeepers also say that not cleaning rooms daily means the rooms are dirtier and take longer to clean between guests, creating more work for them on days with high numbers of rooms “turning over.”
Hotels advertise the option to skip daily housekeeping, typically framing it as environmentally friendly because cleaning rooms less often can mean less laundry and fewer cleaning chemicals used. But what they don’t tell you is that it’s also a way to save money—allowing them to limit the work hours assigned to their housekeeping staff.
We might also suggest pushing back on your husband’s practice of tipping at the end of the stay for several reasons. The first is that the same housekeepers don’t clean the room each day—another housekeeper fills in on their days off. If you tip at the end of a five-night stay, you might be giving a generous tip to a housekeeper who has only cleaned your room on the day you’re checking out but not for the other four nights. Many housekeepers will see that tips get to the right place, but the easiest way to ensure you’re tipping the worker cleaning your room each day is to leave a tip each day before cleaning.
“Housekeepers are some of the least-often tipped hotel workers, so they’re often the most appreciative of tips when they do get them.”
Tips should also be clearly marked as tips—in an envelope with “Housekeeping” or “Room Attendant” written on it and left in a conspicuous place, or with a note indicating the cash is for them. Housekeeping will also generally understand cash placed deliberately on top of a pillow is meant to be a tip, but not if they find it in the sheets, on a dresser without a note, or anywhere else in the room. Alternatively, you can give an envelope to the front desk with a tip for housekeeping, but be sure to write your room number on it.
The second reason to tip housekeeping each night is that you’ll often see the direct result of your kindness paid back in the form of fairy godmother-like service.
Frequent Fodor’s contributor Scott Laird makes a habit of tipping housekeeping each night of a stay and notes the results are sometimes spectacular.
“Housekeepers are some of the least-often tipped hotel workers, so they’re often the most appreciative of tips when they do get them,” Laird notes, adding that housekeepers are often so happy to receive tips that they often lavish extra amenities and attention on guests. “Sometimes a chocolate at turndown turns into a stack of chocolates at turndown, or they might treat you to upgraded amenities typically reserved for suite guests or top-tier repeat guests.”
However, it’s also important to explain that not tipping—whether the service is good or not—is also perfectly ok. It’s perfectly reasonable for a guest to consider the room rate they have paid to be the entire cost of the service, and it is the hotelier’s imperative to ensure that their employees are fairly compensated for their labor.
There’s ultimately no definitive should or shouldn’t when it comes to tipping hotel housekeepers. But it’s worth noting that acknowledgment of a housekeeper’s hospitality with a warm thank you, either in-person or via a note, to the housekeeper themselves or the hotel management, will be well-received anywhere you travel.