Consultant Miss Fei has spent more than 200 days this year in other cities, and hotels have almost become her mobile home. However, she says that she rarely uses the hotel phone to call friends. The biggest use of the room phone for her is to call room service. Extra charges and high fees are the reasons why she is reluctant to use it. She hopes that hotels can exempt appropriate phone charges. Nowadays, the issue of "phone charges" at Jinjiang Inn is causing a small ripple in the hotel industry.
Some US hotels offer free calls
USA Today conducted a survey of 82 hotel brands and found that more than 50 hotel brands have some free call discount measures. Some of these brands waive local call charges, while others offer free long-distance calls for certain guests. For example, the Red Roof Inn in the US waives long-distance charges for rooms with higher prices. The Maclaren Long Beach Hotel and Sule Hotel provide free long-distance calls and free internet access.
In the US, waiving phone charges seems to be becoming a trend, based on the significant drop in the use of room phones in recent years. "Room phone charge revenue used to be a source of income for hotels, but now the situation has changed. The use of room phones has been continuously declining over the past 10 years. This service should now just be a convenience provided to guests," said a spokesperson for the Carlson Group.
For this reason, reporters interviewed several five-star hotels. Shanghai New Jinjiang Grand Hotel's statistics show that phone charge revenue was around 460,000 yuan in 2008, and by October this year, the revenue was approximately 340,000 yuan. Other hotels did not provide specific data, but generally admitted that phone charge revenue in recent years is far from what it was 10 years ago, especially among economy hotels in Suzhou. However, no domestic hotels have yet implemented a free phone charge policy.
Domestic free calls still need time
The decrease in the use of in-room phones is mainly due to the rise of mobile phones and the internet. Tang Honglin, Director of the Publicity Department of the Market Development Division of Garden Hotel, introduced: "Currently, domestic guests in hotels mainly use mobile phones, while foreign guests use room phones more often. Both domestic and international guests consider the internet as an important means of communication, such as emails and video conferencing which are convenient and fast."
High phone charges are also one of the reasons for the decline in usage. Taking a Ritz-Carlton hotel in New York as an example, calling a local number costs $1.72 within one minute, and $1.68 per minute thereafter. In another Ritz-Carlton hotel in Atlanta, long-distance calls cost $13.95 within one minute, and $1.95 per minute after two minutes. At the Four Seasons Hotel in Houston, there is a 45% surcharge on top of basic long-distance charges.
Five-star hotels in Shanghai also have different charging standards. For instance, at the Garden Hotel, local calls cost 0.11 yuan per minute after three minutes, domestic daytime calls cost 0.7 yuan per minute, and international daytime calls cost 8 yuan per minute. The Guxiang Grand Hotel on Donglu Road charges slightly higher rates: 0.3 yuan per minute for local calls in Shanghai, 0.8 yuan per minute for domestic calls, and 9.2 yuan per minute for international calls. However, all five-star hotels uniformly add a 15% service charge on top of the above fees.
Although people's use of hotel phones is decreasing year by year, insiders in the industry generally believe that hotel room phones will not disappear in the foreseeable future. On one hand, the internal line function of the phone is very important to guests, such as certain guests who need morning wake-up services. Some hotels have also set up other functions on the phone, such as the alarm service function set up by the New Jinjiang Grand Hotel in Shanghai. If the phone is off-hook for 30 seconds, it will automatically report an emergency to the main switchboard. "The phone is still an effective supplement to network communications. For example, due to time difference issues, emails may not be received in time, and decisions may not be passed on in time, but the phone can always maintain communication," said Tang Honglin.
At present, guests using the room phone mainly make local calls, such as contacting local friends or clients. "Local calls account for a considerable proportion. For hotels, this is the most direct source of income, so hotels will not easily give up this territory," said Xue Jun, Marketing Director of Guxiang Grand Hotel.