Tipping May Be the Norm, but Not for Hotel Housekeepers (Published 2017) (2024)

The tip doesn’t have to be big — $1 to $5, says the American Hotel and Lodging Association. But fewer than a third of hotel guests leave any money for the housekeepers.

The hotel association publishes a gratuity guide on its website that offers suggestions for tipping everyone from valet attendants to bellhops.

But why are housekeepers often forgotten? A common explanation is that they are out of sight and, therefore, out of mind — that travelers are likely to tip only employees they directly interact with. But another cause may be a simple lack of awareness.

“As a general rule, people just don’t know they’re supposed to tip,” said Shane C. Blum, an associate professor of hospitality and retail management at Texas Tech University. The setting, he said, compounds the problem. “Obviously, when you’re with a group of people, like at a restaurant, there’s social pressure to tip. In a hotel room, you’re usually by yourself and there’s not that social pressure.”

But even when guests are nudged to leave tips for the housekeepers, it doesn’t always work.

In 2014, two longtime housekeepers at the JW Marriott Santa Monica Le Merigot recalled, guests were regularly leaving cash tips when they checked out of their rooms, a result of the hotel chain taking part in “The Envelope Please,” an initiative started by the nonprofit group A Woman’s Nation to make it easier for customers to show appreciation to housekeepers. Envelopes were placed in 160,000 Marriott-managed hotel rooms in the United States and Canada meant to be filled with notes and tips for cleaners.

Within a few weeks, though, the envelopes vanished. “We heard that some guests felt the hotel was demanding tips for us,” Blanca Guerrero, a housekeeper at the Santa Monica Marriott, said through a translator.