Marketplace®

Daily business news and economic stories

Would you miss tiny bottles of shampoo in hotel bathrooms?

Major hotel brands are promising to get rid of one of the most recognizable elements of the hotel experience: tiny bottles of shampoo.

Small plastic bottles of shampoo, conditioner and body lotion sit in a bathroom at a SpringHill Suites, a hotel operated by Marriott, in August in New Orleans.
Small plastic bottles of shampoo, conditioner and body lotion sit in a bathroom at a SpringHill Suites, a hotel operated by Marriott, in August in New Orleans.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Major hotel brands are promising to get rid of one of the most recognizable elements of the hotel experience: tiny bottles of shampoo and conditioner.

Hyatt, InterContinental Hotels Group and Marriott — together controlling dozens of brands — will switch to bigger shampoo and conditioner dispensers in an effort to reduce their single-use plastics. The changes could potentially spare hundreds of millions of those little bottles from ending up in landfills or oceans.

Hyatt is the latest to commit. Earlier this month, it promised to switch to “large-format bathroom amenities” by no later than June 2021, according to a company news release. The plan is to also reduce the use of plastic water bottles by encouraging guests to refill reusable containers.

The decisions help boost brands’ sustainability and corporate responsibility credibility, but do they make customers happy? A 2018 survey by Nielsen found that 81% of those surveyed wanted companies to care about their environmental impact.

We want to know your thoughts. Will you miss the tiny bottles you can take home as souvenirs? Or are you more likely to stay at a hotel that is getting rid of them to help the environment?

Submit a form.

Related Topics