Resort fee
A resort fee is a mandatory tax levied by hotels in some holiday regions and includes various amenities and services that normally have to be booked and paid for separately by the guest.
Origin and elevation
The collection of a resort fee is a very new form of flat-rate invoicing of hotel costs, which was first practiced in 1997 and increasingly in recent years by hotels in the USA. Therefore, to date there is no official German term for this fee. Guests are charged a fixed, season-independent amount per night and room upon check-in or check-out.
Spread and height
A resort fee is currently charged almost exclusively in the USA, there in particular in the states of Florida and Nevada (here primarily in Reno and Las Vegas ), but also in Hawaii and partly in New York City . Taxes between USD 15 and USD 40 per room and day are usual, but in individual cases a resort fee can be significantly more. The increased importance is particularly evident from the significantly increasing amount of resort fees charged across the USA. According to data from New York University , resort fees of over 1.85 billion USD (equivalent to almost 1.4 billion EUR) were earned in 2011 with overnight stays in the USA. At the same time, with a resort fee of 80% - 90% of the taxes levied, the margins seem to make a significant contribution to the hotels' income.
Included services
Very often the resort includes free internet access from the hotel room, free telephone calls, day tickets for fitness rooms and free drinks, in rare cases also daily newspapers, shoe shine service and other services.
Differentiation from the tourist tax
A tourist or local tax is usually collected on the basis of regional regulations by an accommodation on behalf of a public institution (e.g. a municipality) and paid to the latter and is usually intended to finance the additional expenditure for projects and infrastructure resulting from the tourist use of a region. A resort fee is charged by the respective hotel in its own name in order to increase the income of the rented accommodation and to reduce the agency commission, which is often a percentage of the travel price.
criticism
A resort fee can make price comparisons in the holiday regions in which they are levied much more difficult, as the corresponding comparison portals often do not contain or cannot show the taxes. An offer with a resort fee that is difficult to identify can thus seem significantly cheaper to customers than it really is. The situation is similar with package tours, here too a traveler has to check carefully whether the tour operator's offer includes a possible resort fee or whether this has to be paid on arrival.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Article in the New York Times on the resort fee (English) http://travel.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/travel/12prac.html?_r=0 , March 12, 2006
- ↑ Resort fee overview of most Las Vegas hotels
- ↑ http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2011/7/14/155848/428/hotels/This_Hotel_is_Charging_a_$60_Resort_Fee._Yes,_$60
- ↑ Report of the Las Vegas Sun on the increasing importance of a resort fee (English) http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2013/feb/21/caesars-hotels-will-start-charging-resort-fees
- ↑ Article of the Orlando Sentinal (English) http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2013-06-09/business/os-hotel-fees-orlando-feezing-20130609_1_resort-fee-universal-orlando-internet-access , 9. June 2013