Hotels use day passes to find new users for pools and other amenities.

Hannah Ziegler
| Washington Post

Honolulu resident Melanie Alano regularly enjoys the idyllic beaches and expensive cabanas that dot her tourist town. But she’s always had a hard time feeling like she’s on vacation in Hawaii because her job keeps her grounded in the real world, while travelers can be completely unplugged.

But now Alano can mingle with the carefree, piña colada-sipping crowd at her favorite resorts, thanks to a growing trend in the hospitality industry: day passes that allow people to use hotel amenities without renting a room.

“We get day passes to feel like we’re part of the crowd,” Alano, 52, says. “When you’re around people who are on vacation, you feel like you’re on vacation.”

As vacationers cut back on spending and travel closer to home, hotels are facing rising labor costs and reduced travel spending. These factors—as well as falling occupancy rates during the height of the pandemic—have prompted the creation of a new business model for the hospitality industry. Thousands of hotels, especially in popular tourist destinations such as Florida and Hawaii, now rent out their pools, spas, office space and cabanas to guests without requiring them to book a room, a separate source of revenue for hotels.

That trend is expected to continue, according to hospitality consultant and former hotel manager Anthony Melchiorri.

“People are looking for different ways to take half-day trips, and hotels and resorts aren’t getting any cheaper,” Melchiorri said. “Every space in this hotel, if it is not in use at any time, it can be used. This is a perishable product. It’s wasted.”

The average price of a hotel room rose nearly 14 percent between August 2019 and August 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Overnight inflation has slowed over the past year as hotels have found ways to cut costs, but luxury prices have remained high. Average nightly prices in the luxury hotel industry are 60 percent higher this year than in 2019, according to global luxury travel agency network Virtuoso. The surge peaked in July, when the average U.S. luxury hotel room rate was 65 percent higher than the same month in 2019.

That growth has translated into travel-loving consumers like Fort Lauderdale, Fla., resident Lilya Nashanchik.

Like many Americans, Nashanchik’s trips were longer and more frequent before the pandemic. But now, instead of paying $350 to $500 a night at her favorite hotel, she buys a day pass to the pool or cabana for less than $100 about once a month.

“I get there early in the morning, spend the whole day, take advantage of all the opportunities, and then go home,” says Nashanchik, 56. “It saves me a lot of money.”

Consumers also use day passes to bridge the gap between checking out and flying on an extended vacation or to avoid the resort fees that hotels often include in their nightly rates. Charges for amenities such as pools and gyms are most common at higher-end hotels and have recently come under fire for a lack of transparency.

ResortPass, a site that facilitates day pass bookings between consumers and resorts, has tripled its business over the past two years as consumers cut back on their vacations, said Chief Executive Michael Wolf. According to him, the company works with more than 1,700 hotels and adds about 100 new ones to the platform every month.

Hilton began partnering with ResortPass this year and has more than 175 hotels in the app, according to Jessica Shea, the company’s vice president of wellness, retail and entertainment operations for the Americas. About 240 Hyatt hotels participate in day passes, including through ResortPass, according to Asad Ahmed, Hyatt’s senior vice president of commercial sales for the Americas. Many other major chains, including Marriott and Wyndham, have properties on the app.

“There will always be an overnight guest, but day guests can supplement that, and that’s great for the hotel,” Wolf said. “This generates additional revenue, attracts new guests, helps fill underutilized amenities and increases food and beverage spending.”

Hotels typically prioritize increasing room revenue, which accounts for the majority of their sales, rather than overall revenue, says Vanja Bogicevic, a clinical assistant professor of hotel marketing at New York University. But the pandemic was a “wake-up call” that showed the industry they couldn’t count on the consistency of sold-out overnight stays, Bogicevic said.

While many hotel chains have pivoted to offering day passes due to the pandemic, the trend is gaining momentum as value-hungry consumers seek experiences that promote self-care and wellness, Shea said.

“People really want to have amazing experiences and get the most out of their holiday or trip, and I think we can expand on that by saying it’s not just about travel – it’s about free time, time with family, quality time.” , Shi said. . “People may be cutting back on their spending, but those values don’t change.”

Day pass users skip the hotel’s nightly rate but often spend more on food, drinks and entertainment than overnight guests, making their presence a “win-win” for hotels, Shea added.

One-day guests also increase brand loyalty, Bogicevic said. For younger consumers who can’t afford a weekend stay, booking a day ticket to a luxury hotel increases the likelihood of a further stay as their spending power increases.

Before the pandemic, U.S. hotels were worried about jeopardizing their brand exclusivity, according to consultant Melchiorri. But over the past year, many U.S. hotel chains have sought to strengthen ties to their communities, a longstanding priority in other parts of the world, Bogicevic said.

“Covid has created the opportunity to stop travel, but you have the opportunity to offer services to people in local markets,” Ahmed added. “Over the last couple of years, as we come out of the crisis, travel is coming back, but you have the relationships that you’ve built with the local communities.”

The success of day pass programs has shown hotels that overnight guests won’t mind — or often even notice — other customers using shared pools and spas, Melchiorri said. Now the hospitality industry must balance logistics for overnight and day stay guests as demand for shorter trips increases.

Some hotels are still “figuring out” the new third-party platform for coordinating day passes, said Ann Nemer, a 41-year-old Los Angeles resident who recently bought a one-day pass to a nearby hotel’s pool. Although her ResortPass reservation stated an 11 a.m. arrival time, the concierge told her and her friend that the establishments would not open until noon. They arrived at the lodge to find the pool and bar closed and the staff still getting ready for the day.

Nemer described his first experience as “annoying” and “awkward.” But once the pool and bar opened, it was worth saving on hotel and airfare, which has led her to avoid longer holidays in recent years.

“It won’t stop us from doing it again,” Nemer said. “This is such a fun way to make your weekend special without spending twice as much money and time. After that it was all very windy. They just weren’t ready.”

In the future, new hotel complexes could also be developed to increase the number of public spaces that could generate day pass revenue for each brand, Bogicevic said.

While revenue from day passes will never exceed revenue from overnight stays, Melchiorri says, the added business model provides too many benefits for hotels to give it up, even if economic conditions improve and travel costs increase.

“I think we’ve broken the barrier from a hospitality standpoint,” Melchiorri said. “It’s malpractice if you don’t use an empty pool chair or an empty spa to generate extra income. Every little bit helps.”