Hotel Etiquette - Tipping



The Peninsula Hotel, Hong Kong

There are so many people who service you at a hotel and knowing how much to tip in order you receive quality service throughout your stay would be beneficial. The following is a schedule of tips that apply to visitors staying in a hotel or a motel with services for not more than a week. If a visitor stays for a permanent or a long period of time they would tip on a monthly or even twice-yearly basis, if they are a traveling business man or woman, for example. The amount, of course, would vary according to the quality of the service. The hotel residents must arrive at their own conclusions but here are the standard forms of tipping when you are at the hotel or motel. One piece of advice is that you will not get good service unless you tip generously but not lavishly.  Overtipping, to me is equal to that of under-tipping.

In some countries, like the United Kingdom, the US Dollar's value is less than their UK Pound.  A $1 dollar tip would be equal to a .60 cent tip.  So, below are in US Dollars, but if traveling in Europe, I would do the same amounts below but in Pound Sterling (UK) and Euro (Europe).  Sometimes, if I am traveling I will carry USD$50 in singles for tipping.

  • 15% - 20%  for the dining-room waiter in a first-class restaurant
  • 10% of the week's board per person, but less if the family is large for a waiter in an American-plan hotel
  • $5 - $10 to headwaiter if you would like a table in a particular location, and you tip, when you leave, in proportion to the service rendered
  • 15 % - 20% of the bill for each meal, this is in addition to a set sum charged by the hotel for each meal taken to a room
  • $2 to the chambermaid a day, or $1 dollar day in a small inexpensive hotel
  • $2 for each large bag the bellboy carries to the room
  • $1 - $2 for ice, drink set-ups, newspapers, packages, telegrams, etc.
  • $1 for checking a man's coat and hat
  • $2 - $5 to the attendant in the woman's dressing room of a high class hotel or restaurant
  • 15% - 20% of the bill to barbers, manicurists, and beauty-parlor specialists
People who frequently stay at expensive hotels and take first-class accommodations on trains, ships or planes are expected to give larger tips than people traveling economically. The latter may easily be richer, but tips are expected according to appearance. Tipping is undoubtedly an undesirable and undignified system, but if your a traveler that prefers the finer things in life then you will pay your share for a great experience. 

Posted by Eugene Vodovoz at 23 August 2011, 9:15 PM
Categories: Etiquette
Tags: hotel motel tips travel tipping
 
Trackbacks
Trackback specific URL for this post
  • Trackbacks are closed for this post.
Comments
  • No comments exist for this post.
Leave a comment

Comments are closed.