Inventive Solutions Unlocking the Minibar’s Potential

by Lisa Matte
E-Hospitality

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12/18/2000  

Personalized contents and creativity are raising the popularity of in-room refreshment centers

To minibar or not to minibar? That’s a question hotel managers across the country are pondering these days. The answers are as different as the properties are varied. At one end of the spectrum are the high-end properties and boutique hotels stocking minibars with comfort items like peppermint foot cream and aromatherapy candles. At the other end of the spectrum are hotels that have completely removed minibars from guestrooms. Then there are the properties that lie somewhere in the middle, the ones that furnish rooms with empty minibars guests can stock on their own if they choose.

"We never had minibars before. Refrigerators were available by request," says W. Courtney Lowe, director of sales and marketing for the Boar’s Head Inn in Charlottesville, VA. "One of the issues at a property like ours is stocking the minibars and keeping things fresh."

By way of compromise, the Boar’s Head Inn recently installed empty minibars in guestrooms. When they register at the hotel, arriving guests are given a checklist of items available by request so they can choose to have specific snacks and beverages delivered to their room. The goal, according to Lowe, is to provide a service to guests while keeping the cost of providing that service to a minimum. The system also allows the Boar’s Head Inn, located in Virginia wine country, to offer guests a wider variety of products including wines from area vineyards.

"We can do a bottle of wine, box of crackers and cheese," says Lowe. "But, we can also do a lot more in the way of beer, soda, or cookies. People are getting smarter. If they’re not on company dollars and are spending their own money, they’re noticing the prices of minibar items. This makes it feasible for us to stock what we know they want.

"The plan is not to gouge people," he continues. "We’re providing a service, but we’re keeping the prices pretty normal. People are used to seeing soda in a minibar priced at $3 or $4. I believe ours is priced at about $2 which is what we would sell it for in our restaurants."

Customization More Common

Located in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Westin Resort St. John is a beachfront resort property that caters to couples and families. Until recently, the hotel equipped all guestrooms with standard minibars stocked with the usual items--two each of various varieties of beer, wine, liquor, snacks, juice, etc. After concluding that the setup had its drawbacks, management decided to initiate a procedure similar to the one at the Boar’s Head.

"You and your husband might like same thing, maybe Diet Coke, but there are only two in the fridge," says Todd Hunter, senior catering sales manager for the resort. "The rest are Coke or Sprite or whatever. You may have all the selections in the world, but if you don’t like them it doesn’t really matter."

Hunter, who says the often cumbersome task of servicing the minibars was also a contributing factor in the decision to modify the minibar policy, explains that guests now have the option of requesting items to be delivered to their rooms or stocking up on products available at the resort’s on-site deli-mart.

In San Francisco, Kimpton Group’s Monticello Inn has taken a different tack. The hotel, styled and named after Thomas Jefferson’s historic estate in Virginia, recently established a partnership with Borders Books & Music to offer guests an in-room book bar. Beginning in January, honor bars will be stocked with a selection of 10 paperback books and "menus" listing a description of each book and its price. The book bar program is a takeoff on Jefferson’s lifelong love affair with books. Jefferson’s collection of close to 9,000 titles was a cornerstone in the establishment of the Library of Congress.

More Than Snacks and Drinks

Other Kimpton Group properties have also added themed items to their minibars. The Serrano Hotel in San Francisco offers a game honor bar stocked with puzzles, yo-yo’s and even an Etch-A-Sketch. The Pacific Palisades Hotel in Vancouver offers "Young at Heart" minibar items including Tootsie Rolls and Cracker Jacks. San Francisco’s Hotel Palomar stocks its minibars with "Intimacy Kits" containing two prophylactics, two obstetrical towelettes, lubricant jelly and spermicide.

Other Kimpton Group properties offer products like "My Dogs Are Barking" aromatherapy foot care packages (foot salts, foot scrub and foot balm for $12); "Did You Forget" kits (hair brush, comb and mirror, hair gel, hairspray, deodorant, tweezers, pantyhose, white socks, bath beads, perfume, lipstick, eye pencil and sharpener, makeup remover, emery board, nail polish and polish remover, small scissors and contact lens case for $30); Blues music CD, $18.62; pop-out street map, $6; massage oil, $17; or a sleep therapy pillow, $18.

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Atlanta stocks men’s black socks in its minibars. Nail polish and nail polish remover pads will become standard minibar items in January. Mineral and herbal supplements touted as remedies for stress associated with travel are also available as an in-room amenity. In Boston, the boutique-style XV Beacon prides itself on the variety of holistic remedies and comfort items stocked in its minibars including eye pillows, vitamins, Panax Ginseng, Aesop Ginger Flight Aromatherapy and a L’Occitane Aromatherapy Candle. Phidalpehia's Hotel George stocks "Forget-Me-Not" kits containing a toothbrush and toothpaste, shaving cream and razor, and a comb in its minibars. One of the most popular items offered in minibars at Hawaii’s Sheraton Waikiki Resort is its terry-cloth slippers, which are adorned with an image of the Honu--a green sea turtle that serves as the hotel’s mascot and symbol of hospitality. Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Hotel offers caviar served in a crystal dish with a mother-of-pearl spoon for the grand sum of $325. Caviar without the ornate server goes for $75.

Minibars no longer exist in guestrooms at New York’s Hotel Giraffe. They’ve been replaced by "Refueling Stations." But is a minibar by any other name still a minibar? Management at the chic boutique-style hotel may argue that the contents define the amenity. No longer filled with the standard variety of soda, juice, liquor and assorted snacks, in-room refueling stations at the Hotel Giraffe now boast trendy foods and beverages like Nantucket Nectars, Mashuga Nuts and Dean & Deluca snacks.

"(Those) are some of the new products gracing our refrigerator doors," says Rose Revicki, director of sales and marketing for Hotel Giraffe. "We want to satisfy the taste buds of our savvy, discriminating and hungry guests."

Lisa Matte (lisamatte@mediaone.net) is a travel and business writer based in South Weymouth, MA.

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