For Americans, early July marks Independence Day. This year, it also marks independence for hospitality workers.
A record number of hospitality workers are simply quitting their jobs with no intention of ever going back, declaring a certain kind of independence. And those still on the job just gained independence from daily housekeeping as Hilton announced this week that the service will only be performed upon request, Travel Weekly reported.
As hotel stays plummeted in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, daily housekeeping was one of the first services to be cut, but even as travel revived, it's not coming back. It's part of a wider trend within hospitality, the same publication previously reported, fueling the rise of third-party operators that will clean rooms on behalf of hotels, such as New York-based Butler Hospitality. It's one of the starkest examples of how the economy of 2021 will be different from the one of 2019.
As Bloomberg Opinion columnist Conor Sen wrote on Twitter: This is a job that just "won't exist in the future because it's uneconomical." In other words, you're going to have to make your own hotel bed.
Here's what today's economy is finding it just doesn't need.