Is this woman-centric marketing?
According to today’s Business Journal http://albany.bizjournals.com/albany/stories/2008/01/14/story3.html, the Hampton Inn in downtown Albany, New York, is going to be offering a women-only floor to female guests. Guests will receive special amenities and services and the security of having exclusive access to the floor. Of course, security comes at a price. Twenty dollars extra a night, to be exact. Perhaps it helps that the electronic keys granting that exclusive access are pink. And we know all women like pink. Right?
What are your thoughts about this latest innovation in the lodging industry?
posted by Woman-Centric Matters @ 12:59 PM
10 Comments:
Okay, at first glance I got upset thinking, how dare they charge women and extra $20 a night just to sleep on an all female floor!
And then I read the article.
For the extra $20 a night you get free tea, coffe, cookies, a massage and Internet access. I am thinking that the massage alone is worth over the $20, so it might be worth it, especially after traveling all day or networking.
Good point! Personally, I was put off by the pink keys and the fact that they are charging extra to stay on the floor. But IF you take advantage of the perqs, then it's worth it. But those cookies had better be good!
What I find interesting about this article is that they mention coffee and hand lotion but nothing about security. Just because no men are allowed on the floor does not mean that crime would not happen. I think it is very short sighted of them to blindly assume women do not commit crimes or rather women would not commit crimes in HIGH class hotels. You can get robbed or assulted by a man or a woman.
Wow. Yeah...I was so focused on the offensive (to me) pink keys that I didn't even think about the fact that women commit crimes too. Very good point! What a grand opportunity for a criminal, too - a whole floor of women who have let their guard down because they feel "safe".
My thoughts are simply, where do they get off charging women $20 more a night just for floor preference? I think this whole thing is sexism wrapped in a nice "pink" package.
Did no one see the ironic name of the resturant, American Brassiere? I couldn't stop laughing. They think they are breaking new ground by giving women the opportunity to "network" in thier resturants? If it is an extra $20 for the ammenities, I hate to see what they are charging for a diet coke, a salad and idle chit-chat with people I dont know!
I think this was a successful marketing campaign. Whether it offended people or not, it certainly got them what they wanted . . . media attention.
Why can't places like this simply focus on great customer service and not gender? What happened to making the whole hotel safe and not just 1-2 floors? And then to charge more to "feel safe and to network" seems insulting to me. Isn't that what hotels are built for?
I think it is interesting that it is okay to keep the floor all women as long as it is not on the weekend. What is the point of paying extra money during the week for safety and then risk being exposed on the weekend? Some female travelers do stay in one place more than a week or they come in on a weekend for meetings the following week. If you are going to make a floor all women and charge them more, it should be all women all of the time, not just when it is convenient for the management.
Why are they charging women $20 more a night to stay in the hotel? Is it just me or does seem sexist? Both men and women should be charged not based on thier sex but on a fair market price for the hotel. You would think more women would speak up against this sort of thing vs just accepting politely. It is just like the mechanic who charges more when women comes in for services then he does a man. They just assume we don't know what we are asking for.
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