Pet owners with purse-sized pooches, as well as travelers with goldfish, parakeets or hamsters, are finding temporary lodging more amenable to their visits.
Hotels of all stripes — from high-end international chains to trendy boutiques to mid-market highway-interchange lodgings — are increasingly opening their doors to pets.
In New York, about 50 percent of the total rooms citywide, or about 33,000 of 65,000, currently allow animals, even if the hotel doesn’t have a specific pet policy, according to travel industry analysts. A decade ago, that number was just 20 percent. The pendulum has been swinging in a pro-pet direction as some prominent national chains have changed their tune and competitors follow suit. Many of those chains are expanding in New York, especially in Lower Manhattan, where 5,717 rooms will be added by 2010, according to the Downtown Alliance, the neighborhood’s business improvement district.
Why the turnabout? Pet ownership is rising along with hotel occupancy rates. Last year, 63 percent of the 114 million U.S. households, or around 71 million, had a pet. In 1996, in comparison, about 59 percent did, according to Kerry Colburn, spokesperson for the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association, a trade group.
More significantly, though, owners are pampering pets like never before, and hotels are indulging them.
“Hotels are in the hospitality business, and part of hospitality is anticipating the needs of the guests,” said Amelia Lim, a senior vice president at the hotel division of real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle.
“In reaching out to this significant demographic and their pocketbooks, hotels will increase their competitive advantage,” said Lim, comparing the move to hotels’ decision in recent years to hyper-customize their rooms with so-called pillow menus that ask, “Foam or feathers?”
In New York, not as many visiting pet owners have taken advantage of the expanding definition of hospitality. Michael Achenbaum, a principal of WSA Management, developer of the Hotel Gansevoort, where rooms start at $625 a night, said few guests have opted to bring Spot and pay another $100 a night. Not that he’s opposed.
“It’s about catering to your clients,” Achenbaum said. “A lot more people these days are clearly traveling with their dogs.”
Hotel chains with pro-pet corporate policies have many Manhattan outposts. Hotel guests will find a Days Inn, for example, at 215 West 94th Street, and a Courtyard by
Marriott at 114 West 40th Street. Novotel, another brand keeping pace with the trends, has a beachhead at 226 West 52nd Street. Loews Hotels, at 540 Park Avenue, goes a step further, featuring a special pet menu.
Conversely, a few major chains have been mostly silent on the issue, like Hilton, which dominates the Midtown market with a massive hotel at 53rd Street and Sixth Avenue, and Hyatt, with a property at Grand Central. (Both chains, however, do allow pets at a few non-New York locations.)
The standard-bearer, though, is generally accepted as Starwood Hotels — the corporate parent of the Westin, St. Regis and W Hotels, among others. In May 2004, W debuted the P.A.W. program, for “Pets Are Welcome,” allowing them to spend the night and giving them a goody bag with a bed, water bowl and snacks.
Last May, improving on the original, W replaced P.A.W. with “Woof/Meow/Woof,” bestowing pets with their own bathrobes, in addition to original presents.
W, which has five properties in Manhattan totaling 1,795 rooms, is building a sixth: The W New York Downtown is currently rising at 123 Washington Street, at Carlisle Street, near Ground Zero.
Shacking up with your pet at any W will cost you, however. The chain charges owners a $100 non-refundable cleaning fee. Plus, owners must book a larger, more expensive room with a king-size bed, rather than a smaller room with a queen. This fall, W rooms started at $349.
The Hotel Gansevoort, which offers 187 rooms at 18 Ninth Avenue in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, opened in 2004 and welcomed pets the following year, when they were feted with a complimentary bed and snacks. Now, pet guests get one better: a gift box with two custom-embroidered beds.
If there’s a downside to allowing pets, few owners are discussing it. If guests are allergic to, say, cat dander, they haven’t spoken up, Achenbaum said, nor has he received noise complaints about barking.