Why is a 10am check-out the norm at Australian hotels?

Unless, of course, you're on holiday in Australia, that is! Then there's no time for a lazy Sunday sleep in, to get a bit further through the novel, or even have that leisurely coffee. Check-out is fast approaching and you need to be gone from this hotel room by 10 o'clock!!

I've always felt that 10am is a bit too early for hotels to throw you out in the street. For business travellers during the week, it's probably fine. Even for tourists who want to make the most of a day of sightseeing, it's manageable. But for a relaxing getaway, it puts a dampener on the trip. It's hardly a weekend away if it has to end when there's still half the weekend to go. Rushing through your breakfast (which is not included in Australia as often as it is in other countries, by the way!) to get back to your room to pack your bags in time is no fun for anyone.

In Australia, 10 o'clock seems to be the norm, but it's not like that everywhere around the world. Many hotels in the USA have an 11am check-out, while lots of countries in Europe allow you to stay till 12pm. If there was a good reason why it needed to be so early, you would think that might be a global standard, but if the Europeans can make it two hours later, why can't Australia?

The (obvious) argument that hotel managers have put to me is that the cleaning staff need time to get through all the rooms before check-in, but it's not as though Australian hotels offer a chance to get into your room any earlier on arrival. In fact, most accommodations here have a 3pm check-in, which is later than you find in other parts of the world. I think what they really mean is that they would have to hire more staff to do the rooms in a shorter time, and they don't want to pay the extra wages.

Would guests prefer every room to be slightly more expensive to cover the extra wages if it meant they could stay for an extra two hours? Would they be happy to have an even later check-in to allow for a later check-out without having to hire any staff? Perhaps the answer to both those questions would be no, but maybe they're ideas worth considering.

Part of the problem is that hotels don't know in advance when guests are planning to check out. If they did, they would be able to plan the cleaning roster - starting with the early risers and allowing the lazy folks to stay a bit longer until the staff actually needed to get in there. But, even if that was possible, allowing every guest to stay later would also take away the opportunities to increase revenue.

Many hotels do allow guests to stay later ... for a price. The rates are different for every hotel, but they tend to range from about $15 per hour, up to half the daily room rate for an especially late stay. The larger hotel groups such as IHG (which includes Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo, and Holiday Inn) will usually offer a free late check-out as a perk of being an elite member of their loyalty program, which doesn't just reward regular guests but also serves as an incentive to continue to stay with them. And it's not unusual to see the luxury hotels offer weekend package deals that include free breakfast and late check-out as a way to fill rooms on the quieter nights.

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Despite my whinge, it should be noted that it's becoming more common for luxury hotels in Australia to make 11am the time for check out - the Crown Metropol, the Intercontinental, and the Park Hyatt all have that as standard, just to name a few examples. The Four Seasons in Sydney even has a midday check-out! But it's easier for these chains to be more relaxed because the higher room rates can cover any additional costs that come from the shorter time available to clean rooms.

When it comes to the cheaper hotel chains, we may just have to accept that the mornings are going to be a bit more rushed for guests in Australia than in other countries, even though it can be so irksome. But maybe, just maybe, we might see some of them start to follow the trend of the luxury sector. I wouldn't expect them to do it out of generosity, but it's a good point of difference and would probably financially benefit the hotels that chose to do it. There would undoubtedly be enough guests who would base their choice of accommodation on where they could have that leisurely Sunday morning so many of us enjoy.

You can see more on Michael's Time Travel Turtle website.

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