33% Increase, WHAT??????

I am often amazed by the thinking of managers of service establishments. I can almost understand that if costs go up, those costs are passed on to the consumer. Sometimes there is no choice but to increase the prices if the costs have put you in negative territory, but an average of 33% increase across the board is a little extreme.

This week as our family is on our annual trip to Kauai, we have discovered that we will be making quite a few changes to our normal daily routines that we have experienced for the 10 years.

For the past 10 years we have been coming to the Kauai Marriott in Lihue as part of a large family timeshare group. There are now a total of 22 of us that come every year. We are to the point that this is pretty much a second home for us, albeit only one week per year. We know most of the service staff, we don’t need a map and can pick a good restaurant based upon it’s chef/cooks better than most. There is a certain type of normalcy that takes out the initial awkwardness that accompanies a trip into unfamiliar surroundings.

Our first day here, Saturday, gave a us an initial awkwardness that left us feeling a little bit like, “This is not our place.” Our first day is normally a rush to get to the relaxed state that we like our weekly vacation to be in. We get off the plane, rush to the hotel, put on our swimsuits and go down to our pool. We usually sit at the same place around the same time each year. We order drinks, some with extra shots, to take out that stress that air travel tends to put on a lot of people. This year our flight arrangement was different, so we weren’t able to get lunch at the Honolulu airport, so we figured we would just get it down by the pool. We have our favorites.
Anyway, we get down to the pool, to our table and order food. We didn’t even think to look at the prices, we figured that they would be a little more expensive than normal, but about the same as last year. When my food came, I thought something was a little bit different….NO FRIES!!!!! I asked where the fries were and she said, “Oh, that will be 3 dollars extra for the side of Fries.” I said, “WHAT!” Then I looked at the menu and was completely baffled at the prices of every item. It appears that there is at least 25% increase on most items and if you want things that you’ve come to expect from your meal, expect to pay extra…. Like fries!

A cheeseburger with fries used to be $9.00. It is now $12.00. If you want fries, add $3.00. That’s over 50% increase for the same thing we have gotten for the past 10 years. THAT’s INSANE!!! A Mai Tai used to be $7.50, now it’s $9.75. As I kept looking at the prices, I couldn’t help but think this is not the place we were used to. A quick look around the usually crowded pool area, there were many areas of empty lounge chairs, a sure sign of the economy, gas crisis and Hawaiian air travel problems over the last year. Another sign that should have clued me in was that our room was ready upon our arrival….early. It's never ready until 4pm like they state. My father in law was offered a Presidential Suite upgrade and a largely decreased price. It was obvious that they were hurting a little because of economy and all that’s accompanied it.

So if you manage a service oriented business that is hurting like this, what should you do? My first thought would to be to take care of the people who are at your business and make them not want to leave. For me, it would seem that reducing the prices slightly so they buy more. Apparently, the manager isn’t thinking along the same lines and for the first time, these price increases will have us going to the grocery store to buy snacks, drinks and lunch food. So the $1000.00 per week we normally spend by the pool will be down to about $300.00….at the most. So they may have increased the prices by 33%, but we have decreased our spending by more than twice as much. We are not alone with this either. Our whole party of 22 is doing the same. That’s 5 families decreasing the money spent here. That’s $3500.00 that we won’t be spending at the Lihue Marriott this year.

The good news is that Duke’s, which is next to the hotel managed to keep their same prices. A quick look at the online menus of the restaurants on the island seems to indicate the same thing. We will be happy leave the hotel for food elsewhere.