Why I don’t like the Marriott Residence Inn media policy

29 December 2007 | Culture, Media, Personal | Comments

Nodding in from vacation: we’re staying at the Marriott Residence Inn here in Portland, Oregon, and there has been a change in how they deal with media that bums me out. We’ve been staying here for years when we visit family: it has two rooms, one of which is in a loft, so the kids have their own room downstairs and Kathi and I have some privacy. We love it here… for the most part.
Back when we first started staying here, the Marriott Residence Inn had a handful of DVD players that you could have installed in the room free of charge.  Since the kids have shows that they like, and that we always bring with us on DVD, this was great.

Then, recently, Marriott Residence Inn changed all their TV and pulled the lendable DVD players in favor of their new pay-through-the-nose movie rental, TV show rental and truly-hideously-expensive music rental policy (you can listen to two hours of music for a whopping $10). Note that none of the shows that my kids like or that we travel with are actually on the limited list of TV rentals.

We actually have and travel with a small DVD player, which now keeps my two year old entertained for a few minutes while we’re getting ready to go out for the day, and this has saved us.

At a moment when media is becoming more portable and flexible across the board, Marriott’s move, here, is short sited and NOT a good example of the great customer service that they claim to have. It’s bad for parents with young folks, and just generally something that will make me look for non-Marriott options when traveling– and I do a LOT of business travel.

What I WANT from hotels is media flexibility: I want a DVD player that I can stick media into; a dock for my iPod. Looking forward into the very near future, I want the ability to stream things from my laptop onto the bigger TV screen, to have a Slingbox or Orb or Joost or Hulu right on the bigger screen, and I don’t want to pay extra for it.  I’m already paying a nightly fee plus taxes for this room– why should I pay more for media that is either ad-supported or that I’ve paid for either at home or bought at the store?

Should Marriott offer me new movies for pay on the screen? Sure.  Should they constrain my other media choices? Heck no!

Recently, at a different hotel–by chance another Marriott, the Marquis in NY–I watched a streaming episode of NBC’s “Bionic Woman” on my laptop using my AT&T EVDO card– it was a great experience (a tiny bit of buffering, but otherwise full-laptop-screen glory), and I did it neatly without using either paying the hotel’s broadband fee or their media fees. That sort of thing is only going to get easier, as it should.

Marriott shouldn’t be in a media arms race with its customers.