Marriott has announced that with support from their credit card partners American Express & JP Morgan Chase they will provide $10 million worth of hotel stays for healthcare professionals under ‘Room For Responders’ program. These will be free rooms that are provided in the most impacted areas: ‘New York City, New Orleans, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Washington, D.C. and Newark, N.J’.
Doing something is better than nothing, but given how many of these rooms are sitting idle anyway it would have been nice to see a larger donation if needed. For example the program Hilton & American Express put together is for a total of 1 million rooms, that seems significantly more generous than this program. Still better than nothing but I do hope that Marriott makes more rooms available if they are needed.
This came
Surprisingly they weren’t trying to get us to donate or buy points or Chain GCs to help “first responders”
I have always thought that this type charity marketing was some of the most egregious and disengenous ‘Charity’ PR – a little less so if they match 1:1 – but ultimately it is the corporation that benefits the most – and while it appears noble on the surface….
Red Roof is donating a bunch of free rooms as well, across their whole line of hotels.
Who is going to shoulder the cleaning and disinfecting cost when the usage is over?
If it’s like other hotels that are doing this, the rooms will likely be given a multi-hour heat treatment before rooms are used by anybody else.
This won’t be the first time a hotel has had to do something like this. We’re hearing about it so much now obviously because of COVID-19. But before this, hotels have had to disinfect rooms due to infectious diseases.
As for who exactly will shoulder the cleaning and disinfecting costs, that would be “Marriott, American Express & JP Morgan Chase.“
No, they’ll leave it up to the individual owners of each hotel. And the individual owners will probably think to themselves — what’s the big deal? Who will ever find out? NEXT!
This is a pretty bad news. None of these hotels have adequate ventilation; many of them have central air. This is a big disaster waiting to happen, and a good reason to avoid any of Hilton and Marriott hotels for the time being.
Is there a specific list of hotels or properties participating? Is it only for the specific geographic areas, or nationwide?
Most hotels use individual HVAC units for each room.
Even with the individual HVAC, there’s always huge holes below the entrance door. If someone smokes in the room next door, it all goes through the vestibule right away.
And most higher-end hotels have only central air. Marriott, Hilton DoubleTree towers, almost never have window units, it’s always central. And they change those 30-day filters once every few years — if you’re lucky, that is; most of it is not even HEPA.
The thick layers of dust, hair and pet fur act as a HEPA-ish filter, so it’s all good. 😀
I’m sure the rooms have isolated ventilation. And if not, the rooms can be converted with some extra equipment.
This isn’t the first hotel chain to do this. Others chains have done so with room air systems that are isolated from other rooms.
Yeah, I’m sure someone will do it. — Literally everyone in the whole chain of command at Marriott.
Nothing will ever be converted. It’s all a big joke, and merely a PR move, at the cost of the well-being of employees and travellers.
Thank you. One hotel chain is notably absent. Has been absent throughout this crisis. Not a single act of charity from the family or the hotel chain.
Yes, because forced “charity” is such a great idea – either through government mandate or peer pressure.