Is There Anything More Annoying in a Hotel Room Than the Lights 2024

Too much, too little, and too scattered. Just getting the lights on in a hotel room has become too much for some travelers.

By Dawn Gilbertson
April 23, 2024

Ken McLain is no detective but he plays one every time he checks into a hotel.

The case: figuring out how to turn on the lights in his room. At his hotel in Boise, Idaho, this week, the switch by the door only turned on a small minibar light. So the regional bank president stumbled his way in the dark to a floor lamp near the couch, eventually finding a tiny toggle on the lamp far from the lightbulb.

“I guess they’re trying for style points to hide that switch,” he says.

Frequent traveler Ken McLain found the lighting in his Boise, Idaho, hotel room inadequate and light switches hard to find. PHOTO: KEN MCLAIN

Forget wonky digital keys and hotel showers that ought to come with an instruction manual. For many frequent travelers, the most maddening thing about hotel rooms—aside from rising nightly rates—is lighting. Too much, too little, too scattered, too complicated, an afterthought or overwrought. 

It’s frustrating anytime but particularly for the weary tourist coming into their rooms after a long trip late at night and the business traveler staying at a new hotel every week. 

“Nothing else drives me nuts quite like the lighting,” says Steve McDuffie, a scientist from Washington state who travels frequently for his job in nuclear waste management.

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There are many reasons for the complicated lighting. Often hotels are attempting to give us features we like at home—such as reading lights or overhead lighting—while facing the economic realities of running a hotel.

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Complicating matters is the fact that many big city hotels are in old buildings. Adding master switches and headboard panels, popular hotel room lighting trends of the past few years, can be a costly undertaking because it requires digging into walls and rewiring the whole place. 

“It’s harder to get the same functionality as you can if you were doing a new construction project,” says Sarah Churchill, director of business development for Benjamin West, a Colorado company that purchases furniture, fixtures and equipment for hotels.

Even at the top

Even top hotel executives get flustered by in-room lighting. Marriott International Chief Executive Tony Capuano estimates he’s stayed at least 15 times at the The London Edition hotel, the chain’s Ian Schrager-designed luxury boutique hotel. Capuano says he still can’t figure out how the fancy toggle switches work. 

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“They are charming, but we chose form over function,” he says.

Kellie Sirna designs hotels as founder and principal of Studio 11 Design in Dallas. She ranks lighting in the top three guest priorities in a room, up there with a good mattress and a functional space. 

“A room that’s too dark or too bright is a mood kill and can kill an experience,” she says. 

Sirna’s also encountered another problem in trendy hotels: not enough wattage to get ready for work.

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“I was trying to use my [smartphone] flashlight to do makeup,” she says. “It was that bad.”

She says hotels have to strike a balance between lighting features we’re used to in our homes and lighting that is affordable, durable and not too hard to use. No one wants to have to call the front desk to ask how to turn the lights on and off. And most hotels don’t have the staff to send someone to your room every time there’s an issue.

Room-lighting schemes vary from hotel to hotel, even within the same chain. You might have to turn off several different lamps before going to bed at one Marriott or Hilton and find a master switch built into the headboard at others.

A new challenge in every room

In rooms with multiple lamps and switches, there’s always the one you can’t figure out.

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In New York City last fall, Churchill had to ask her boss to show her where the rocker switch was on the desk lamp. The one in his room was on the front of the lamp, hers was in the back.

On a business trip in Salt Lake City this month, Churchill’s colleague couldn’t figure out how to turn off the headboard light.

“She slept the entire night with a washcloth over her head to block out the light,” she says.

Then there’s the problem of rolling over and accidentally hitting the master switch on the headboard and lighting up the room.

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Some hotels have added automatic sensors and nightlights so you or your traveling companions aren’t blasted awake during a middle-of-the night bathroom visit. Hilton is making nightlights a brand standard by the end of this year.

Seattle wellness coach Jill Consor Beck is among the legions of travelers who struggle with hotel room lighting and wonder why it has to be so complicated. PHOTO: MARC BECK

Bathroom lighting during the day is also an issue, especially for female travelers. We’ve all suffered that fluorescent lighting that showcases every flaw and can lead to embarrassing makeup overapplication.

Seattle wellness coach Jill Consor Beck counsels her clients on the importance of a good night’s sleep. That’s a challenge for her and other business travelers in rooms with lighting issues.

At a Westin in New York City last week she wanted a dimmer switch in the bathroom. The only option was on or off.

“You don’t want a bright light at 3 o’clock in the morning,” she says. “That’s totally going to screw up your sleep.”

Source : WSJ
May 2024