Shownotes:

As a frequent traveler, I’ve been to a lot of hotels in different places. Some people say that every hotel is unique in its own way, or different among other hotels. But rather than difference, I noticed one thing that most hotels have in common - they don’t have ready-to-drink water in the room. It’s either you have to look for a fountain or a dispenser, or you have to ask for room service and get billed too much for water. What could be the reason behind that?

Hello and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today, I'd like to talk about water and specifically water in hotels. What I found is that when traveling, it's amazing how many hotels will have a coffee making machine, and offer you tea and coffee in your room, but not water. Now, as a human being, we generally need water to live. Yes, some of you might argue that you need coffee to live, but that coffee also requires water. And I've definitely been traveling in some countries where the water isn't drinkable from the tap or the faucet, depending on where you come from, and yet there's a coffee machine there. And no way for you to fill said coffee machine with drinkable water. And those places that do offer water might offer one or two plastic bottles of water, small ones, maybe a quarter or half a liter.

But if you're traveling, you're going to be dehydrated. If you're flying, you're going to be dehydrated. You get to a hotel and maybe you get to the hotel late at night where you can't go out to a store or a shop to go and buy water. But as a human being, you need water. And even more so if you're traveling and then doubly or triply so if you're traveling in a hot country. So what I don't understand is why A, hotels make it so difficult for you to get water and B, why is it plastic bottles? I mean now, it'd be a great way for you to promote your hotel if people had stainless steel water receptacles, or maybe there was one in the hotel room and you had a water filter bottle on every floor. Instead of having the ice machine on every floor, next to the ice machine, you could have a water filtration system that someone could go and take their little aluminum or stainless steel cup and get filled up.

One thing I have done, on the odd occasion when I can't leave the hotel and I do need water, I do happen to travel with a refillable water bottle. But if not, what I found is the gym, if your hotel has a gym, which tends to be open 24/7 though I have come across some unique hotels where someone has to be in there with you for you to use the gym. But another story. If you go to the gym, most of the time there will be water in there. I don't think I've ever been to a hotel gym that doesn't have water and so it's a great place to go and refill your water bottle or get some water in a cup or a couple of cups or stand there and just drink a lot of water to re-hydrate. That's something that I would do, especially if I was in a neighborhood that I didn't know. I came in late at night. I find that's a good way to get water.

But yeah, hotels, what's up with not sort of having just water for people. We're human. We need water more than we need coffee or tea. And one time I actually tested out a hotel to see what would happen. They had a coffee maker and I was like, "Oh, hey." So I see the coffee maker, which was not near any plug socket I might add, and it was in a country where you couldn't drink the water. And so I called up and I was like, "There's a coffee machine here and I'd like some coffee or some tea, and how can I get boiling water?" I mean I get it because boiling water is a risk. People will sue because they've been scolded by the water. So I do get it, but then just don't give me a coffee machine.

And their way of working round the problem was by charging me for room service for tea. I literally just got a teapot, a metal teapot with hot water, a teacup. I had to use the tea bags that were with the coffee and tea thing that was in my room to get tea. And so there goes convenience of making it yourself or doing it yourself when you have to get room service, put clothes on, tip and be charged for hot water. Yeah.

So thanks for listening. This is Janice. Please feel free to email me with any questions that you have at Janice@careerintrovert.com helping you move forward with your business and your career alongside your introversion. Thank you for listening.