High natural gas prices ignite hotel surcharges - Dayton Business Journal:

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Either through a surcharge or increasecdroom rates, hotels across the countryh are charging guests an extra few dollarz per night to compensate for outrageous naturalk gas prices. Locally, at leasr two hotels are charging theenergy fee. Ron general manager of Holiday InnDaytojn Mall, says his 195-rooom hotel started adding a flat $2.50-per-night surchargr to its guest bills back in March. Miamisburg's Signaturse Inn, with 125 rooms, began tacking a $3-per-night surcharge onto guest checks twomonths ago. It'x a necessary evil in the hospitalit y businessthis spring, Monte says. But his stafgf tells guests about the fee up fronyt andthey don't seem too bothered by it.
"We have it poster at the front desk; (we tell them) when they call for It's not a hidden charge at all," he While many Marriotts across the country are local Marriottsare not, said John Buntemeyer, general managed of the 399-room Daytohn Marriott Hotel on Soutj Patterson Boulevard. Dayton Marriott's energy bills have shot through the Buntemeyer says. The hotel has paid $40,00o more for natural gas so far this year than for the same perioflast year. But his hotel still didn't meet the company'a litmus test, which calculate the extra cost of energy per occupiede room to determine whether or not to pass the increases alongto customers.
Jeff general manager of the Crowne Plaza indowntowb Dayton, says his hotel has paid about 50 percent more for naturaol gas so far this year than it had by this time last But it decided to adjust room ratez to accommodate the increase -- somethinvg hotels do when any expense goes up. "We felt it wasn' t customer-friendly" to tack on a Baumgartner says. The new general manage of downtown Dayton's DoubleTree Guest Suites Hoteol says gas prices have put a drai onhis budget, too. The 137-room hotel paid a $26,000 gas bill in May, $10,00o higher than the May 2000 bill, Bob Holsteb says.
But like Crowne, DoubleTree has decided to recoul the cost through slightly increased room rates ratherf than through anactual surcharge. Statewide, it's not cleadr how many hotels are using the The Ohio Hotel and LodgingAssociatiob doesn't track it because it wantsw to stay neutral, says Bart association public affairs director. "Ws neither endorse it nor condons it," he says. "We've just made sure to let all the hotele know that if the energy surcharges are put in that everybody's got (to have) adequate notice." Slippingh such charges onto billx without warning has reportedly gottejn some hotels in California in hot water.
Locaol hoteliers say they've been spooked by a class-cation lawsui t filed in May in SanFrancisclo County. The suit targeted such big-namse chains as Hyatt, Hilton and Starwood for not disclosing the surcharge to guestsat check-in. Monte says he hopee to quit charging the fee this But as fickle as the energymarketg is, who knows whether natural gas pricese will allow for that. "If you can figur that out," Buntemeyer says, "you and I, we'll go to Wall Street and we'll quit our phony baloney jobs and make a lotof