Hotel Housekeeping

USA Today ran an article in the Travel section on a topic that's been getting some buzz: hotels trying to reduce costs by reducing housekeeping service.  Different hotels are trying different things, but as far as I can tell, it started with hotels asking if it was ok to not change the bed linens every day.  There was some obscenely high number for how many gallons of water were used, so in general we all said, "That's fine."  The consensus of opinion among my co-workers -  a population of pretty heavy travelers - is that fresh linens every three days is perfectly reasonable.  We sheepishly allow that we kinda like fresh towels every day.  We seem to be in line here:

"Bjorn Hanson, of New York University, says customers aren't buying the industry's "green" argument but are generally accepting modest cutbacks in housekeeping. "The long-term trend (for companies) is to look for ways to make hotels more affordable and accessible," he says."

Back in January, I wrote about a "No Housekeeping" pilot program that the Sheraton Seattle was running.  I was left feeling rather negative.  And while at the time I thought, "points for trying something new", I'm starting to feel like it is some kind of lab experiment to see when we, as travelers, start to scream.

The airlines found it to be somewhere between, "pay for priority boarding" and "pay to use the airplane bathroom".