Free Breakfast with the Hotel Stay – may be a thing of the past

It was almost a must for every hotel brand to offer free breakfast with a night’s stay. Guests at the hotels enjoyed this offer the most and loved to make comments about the deficiencies of the breakfast offerings. At the same time, they loved to eat as much as they could fill in their stomachs beyond their appetite. Franchise management loved to experiment with a variety of breakfast items and forced franchisees to serve these items without considering the financial and operational burden franchisees had to bear. Franchise management did not care if a franchisee had enough room to accommodate hundreds of guests staying at the hotel on vacation who had no emergency of time but had interests only in eating and enjoying their trips. Guests cannot be blamed for the breakfast liability because this was imposed on franchisees by the hotel’s brand management. Guests did not care for the quality of food if they could get it in quantity even though they almost sat on top of each other in a congested breakfast area. I always wondered what would happen if there was an accident or there was some type of food poisoning and a lot of guests in the hotel got injured or got sick? I even raised this question to the counselor of the hotel brand and he never took it seriously. I put the same problem before the several executives of my hotel brand, they listened to me and as soon as they walked out of the doors of my hotel, they just pretended that it could never happen. Besides all the above liabilities, the worst thing that happened every day was the wastage of lots of food. The guests would fill up their plates as much as they could as if the food will disappear from the planet of the earth in the next minute but would not hesitate to throw all in the trash if they did not like it. Unfortunately, there are lots of people in this world who sleep on an empty stomach for many days because they cannot afford to get food. Why would I mention it to be a tradition of the past?

Things have changed due to Corona Virus Pandemic!!! What many of the franchisees like me could not do anything to handle free breakfast offering problems for years, this Covid-19 has done in a short time. The first biggest thing is Social Distancing that everyone must maintain with a face mask. Most of the hotels do not have enough room to maintain social distancing of a minimum of six feet and accommodate a large number of guests in a small congested lobby area for free breakfast. Secondly, how can franchisees make sure that all employees preparing breakfast is not an asymptomatic carrier of the Corona Virus? How can guests trust that they cannot be infected by Covid-19 from others in a closed congested space? So, there is a question of the Safety of the health of guests of the hotel. The third important factor in consideration of the spread of the Corona Virus is the Quality of Food. According to the guidelines of the CDC, coronavirus can stay in the paper, cardboard, and plastic containers from few hours to few days. So, can the quality of food be safe? It is doubtful. So, considering three factors, social distancing, safety, and quality of food the free breakfast offerings will be hard to justify in hotels. This is the reason I say that the free breakfast offer may be a thing of the past in hotels. Even guests staying in the hotels will not be willing to take a chance to eat $5-$10 of free breakfast in exchange for getting infected by the life-threatening disease Covid-19. Finally, if guests are not eating free breakfast at the hotels, there will not be any wastage of food which was a very unfortunate common habit of guests. At the same time, the guests will be saved from eating unhealthy sugar-filled greasy food of the hotel and help themselves in staying healthy. A real “windfall” for the hotel guests. This is the best Covid-19 has given to hotel franchisees and the guests of the hotels. Finally, it justifies saying, free unhealthy breakfast food offerings may be a thing of the past!