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

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Either through a surcharge or increasedcroom rates, hotels across the countryh are charging guests an extraz few dollars per night to compensatr for outrageous natural gas Locally, at least two hotel s are charging the energy fee. Ron Monte, generalk manager of Holiday Inn Dayton sayshis 195-rooom hotel started addiny a flat $2.50-per-night surcharge to its guest bills back in March. Miamisburg's Signature Inn, with 125 began tacking a $3-per-night surcharge onto guesy checks twomonths ago. It's a necessaru evil in the hospitality business this Monte says. But his staff tellw guests about the fee up front andthey don'ty seem too bothered by it.
"We have it posted at the fronr desk; (we tell them) when they call for It's not a hidde n charge at all," he While many Marriotts across the countryuare surcharging, local Marriotts are not, said John general manager of the 399-room Dayton Marriott Hotel on Southg Patterson Boulevard. Dayton Marriott's energy bills have shot throughgthe roof, Buntemeyer says. The hotel has paid $40,000 more for natural gas so far this year than for the same periodclast year. But his hotek still didn't meet the company's litmus which calculate the extra cost of energy per occupiede room to determine whether or not to pass the increasee alongto customers.
Jeff Baumgartner, generao manager of the Crowne Plaza in downtown says his hotel has paid about 50 percenr more for natural gas so far this year than it had by this time last But it decided to adjust room rates to accommodatre theincrease -- something hotels do when any expense goes up. "We felt it wasn't to tack on a Baumgartner says. The new general manager of downtowb Dayton's DoubleTree Guest Suites Hotel says gas pricex have put a drain onhis too. The 137-room hotel paid a $26,0009 gas bill in May, $10,00 0 higher than the May 2000 bill, Bob Holstebn says.
But like Crowne, DoubleTrew has decided to recoup the cost througj slightly increased room rates rather than through anactuakl surcharge. Statewide, it's not clear how many hotel s are usingthe charge. The Ohio Hotel and Lodging Associationj doesn't track it because it wants to stay saysBart Hacker, associatio public affairs director. "We neitherr endorse it nor condon it," he says. "We've just made sure to let all the hotelx know that if the energy surcharges are put in that everybody's got (to adequate notice." Slipping such charges onto bills withoutf warning has reportedly gotten some hotelw in California in hot water.
Localk hoteliers say they've been spooked by a class-cation lawsuitf filed in May in SanFranciscok County. The suit targeted such big-name chains as Hilton and Starwood for not disclosingv the surcharge to guests at Monte says he hopes to quit charging the fee this But as fickle as the energymarket is, who knowse whether natural gas prices will allow for that. "If you can figurer that out," Buntemeyer "you and I, we'll go to Wall Street and we'll quit our phony balonety jobs and make a lotof