It’s funny how some minor things about hotels can change on a widespread basis, without most people noticing. This is totally not important, though I do find it to be interesting.
Why hotels often have phones next to the toilet
At least historically, you may have noticed that there’s almost always a phone right next to the toilet at upscale and luxury hotels. Now, cleanliness concerns aside, one would probably assume that this is a safety feature, perhaps since people are most likely to slip and fall in the bathroom, so it’s useful to have a phone nearby.
While that might indirectly be the reason that hotels have had this feature, the actual reason is a little more nuanced than that. Historically — at least going back a decade or so — hotels did this with an ulterior motive.
Specifically, AAA has its hotel “Diamond” ratings, and in order to get a four Diamond or above rating, one of the requirements was to have a phone in the bathroom. So hotels offered this feature so that they could check that box, in order to get that rating.
This AAA requirement was quietly dropped, and you’ll notice it
In the past several years, it’s much rarer to find phones in hotel bathrooms, especially at newly built hotels. For some reason, this “clicked” for me during a recent hotel stay. After all, you wouldn’t really think of a phone next to the toilet unless you actually needed it, so it’s easy to not put much thought into it.
But for whatever reason, it’s something I recently processed while photographing a hotel toilet (as one does!). “Hey, there’s no phone anymore, I wonder what happened.”
So I looked it up, and as it turns out, AAA completely dropped the bathroom phone requirement from its ratings system. I’m trying to figure out when exactly this change happened. Best I can tell, it was with the 2018 standards update that AAA eliminated this requirement, as that was largely intended to reflect updates in technology. Prior to that, the last major update to AAA Diamond requirements was all the way back in 2003, so that’s quite a long gap.
Now that I go back and look at all the pictures I’ve taken, I notice a majority of luxury properties in recent years don’t have these, and I just haven’t noticed. It seems logical enough for AAA to drop this, especially since we live in an era where most people have a smartphone that they can use in an emergency.
For those curious, you can find AAA’s current Diamond rating guidelines here.
Bottom line
Up until 2018 or so, upscale and luxury hotels pretty consistently had phones in the bathrooms. While one could argue that was for safety, the ulterior was certainly to be able to get a AAA four Diamond rating. However, those guidelines were updated over time, and it’s no longer necessary for hotels to have phones in the bathroom in order to get any sort of a rating.
I recognize that I might be the only person who finds this interesting, so I’m sorry/you’re welcome.
Am I the only one who is just now processing the lack of phones in hotel bathrooms?