Airport.ca the travel blog

MAR

The Art Of Tipping

Tipping is a pretty big deal in a city like New York. But if you're a big city neophyte, it's hard to know exactly when to tip and how much is appropriate. Fodor's recently came out with a guide to tipping in NYC.

Tipping the maitre d' is unnecessary unless you are specifically trying to be a 'big shot'. The standard 15% tip for servers is still the norm, although for the more upscale restaurants that number rises to 20%.

Tipping at a bar is usually a buck-a-drink. But, if you're knocking back some expensive cocktails you may want to up the tip ante to $2.

Whether it's a dinner reservation, hailing a taxi cab, or a can of shaving cream at 2am, the hotel concierge can be your best friend while away from home. For simple tasks a $3-5 tip is ample. However, concierges can also 'hook you up' with things that may be hard to come by like great seats at a Rangers game or a sold-out broadway show. If your concierge comes through for you in a big way, a $10 tip or more should be considered.

But what do we really know about the practice of tipping, and does tipping well mean you get better service?

Here are some interesting facts on tipping:

- Studies have shown that there is practically no relationship between the quality of service and the size of the tip.

- Tips are higher in sunny weather.

- If a waittress draws a happy face on the restaurant bill, she increases her tips by 18%. If a waiter draws a happy face, he decreases his tips by 9%.

- The more a culture values status and prestige, the more likely it is that culture uses tipping to reward service.

But is all of this tipping a good idea? Many parts of Europe use 'service charges' instead of tipping and while North America is heavily steeped in the practice of customer-driven tipping, there is a vocal minority against it.

In fact, the justification for tipping, more specifically using tips to reward good service or to penalize bad service may work far better as theory than real-world practice.

Michael Lynn, an associate professor of consumer behavior and marketing at Cornell's School of Hotel Administration, has conducted dozens of studies of tipping and has concluded that consumers' assessments of the quality of service correlate weakly to the amount they tip.

Rather, customers are likely to tip more in response to servers touching them lightly and crouching next to the table to make conversation than to how often their water glass is refilled - in other words, customers tip more when they like the server, not when the service is good. (Mr. Lynn's studies also indicate that male customers increase their tips for female servers while female customers increase their tips for male servers.)

What's more, consumers seem to forget that the tip increases as the bill increases. Thus, the tipping system is an open invitation to what restaurant professionals call "upselling": every bottle of imported water, every espresso and every cocktail is extra money in the server's pocket. Aggressive upselling and hustling for tips are often rewarded while low-key, quality service often goes unrecognized.

In addition, the practice of tip pooling, which is the norm in fine-dining restaurants and is becoming more common in every kind of restaurant above the level of a greasy spoon, has gutted whatever effect voting with your tip might have had on an individual waiter. In a perverse outcome, you are punishing the good waiters in the restaurant by not tipping the bad one.

So what can be learned from all of this? No matter what city you are in, tipping is really all about you. The most important thing to remember when tipping is to never stray from your comfort zone. It's far more important to leave a tip that you're happy with, than leaving a tip you think the server or the establishment expects.

Tipping in New York [Fodor's]
What do we know about tipping? [Marginal Revolution]
Tipped Off [New York Times]
Some interesting stats and observations on tipping [Kottke]
Image Credit: [Stockbyte]

TAGS: gratuity hotels new york restaurants tipping

AUG

World's Best Hotel Bars

"We chose one hotel bar per city, places where the bartenders are knowledgeable and friendly, where the bar is frequented by locals (a sure sign of quality), but where you won't find strobe lights or novelty drinks with glowing straws. The hotels themselves had to be located near the city's center and have several corporate clients.

The next time you're out of town, may we suggest a nightcap at one of these forty bars. Which city makes a meaner martini, Seoul or Cairo? You decide."

TAGS: awards bars drinks hotels

JUL

Donald Trump Breaks Ground On Trump International Hotel and Tower Las Vegas

Fresh off the heels of the opening for the $2.7 Billion Wynn Las Vegas, comes Trump's lastest swing for the fences. Expected to be the tallest residential tower on the strip, and with a price tag of half a billion, you know bold-gold-and-gaudy is the design line.

The 64-story Trump International Hotel and Tower Las Vegas is going up on a portion of the New Frontier hotel-casino property -- across from the newly opened Wynn Las Vegas resort and next to the Fashion Show Mall.

It's due to open in early 2008 -- clad in gold glass with white trim -- with the Trump name on top.
It'll have almost 13-hundred luxury residential and hotel units, a spa and restaurants.
Priced between 600-thousand and six (M) Million dollars, they've already sold out.

But the real story here may be the rebirth of the North-end of the Las Vegas strip, sparked by Steve Wynn's massive gamble.

Perhaps the biggest story involving this hotel (Wynn Las Vegas) is not so much the aesthetics of it, but what it will actually do and already has done to the power-core of the Las Vegas strip. For years, the strip has been dominated by the big players on the South end of it (Bellagio, Mirage, etc.). With Wynn opening on the forgotten North end of the strip, all of a sudden old relics like the Sahara, Stardust and Riviera find themselves back in the spotlight, back in action and in the crosshairs of a revitalization movement they did nothing to create.

$2.7 Billion Wynn Las Vegas Hotel Opened Today [PrimeMinister.ca]

TAGS: hotels lasvegas trump

JUL

Paris: Fine Dining On A Countertop

"It all begins with space: there's not much of it. The layout of the restaurant, in the Hotel Pont Royal; 5, rue de Montalembert, is that of a large sushi bar.

There are no (that's right: no) tables, only a couple of large, snaking counters surrounding a semi-open kitchen. Comfort definitely suffers -- imagine eating great food at Woolworth's, with your server having to lean awkwardly over the counter to place your meal in front of you -- but, because the place is in fact very small, the level of service remains high. It's attentive, friendly, and sympathetic."

TAGS: hotels paris restaurants

JUL

Dubai's 7 Star Hotel

"Standing 321 metres high, Burj Al Arab is the world's tallest hotel. It has 28 storeys comprising 202 suites charging from 1,000 US dollars per night for a one-bedroom Deluxe Suite to 10,000 US dollars for a Royal Suite.

The hotel boasts of offering the world's best service, and continues to attract guests from all over the world despite the emergence of more luxurious hotels, like the three-billion-US dollar Emirates Palace which opened in March, also in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)."

TAGS: dubai hotels luxury

The Galle Fort Hotel Is A 300-Year Old Dutch Masterpiece In Sri Lanka

Geoffrey Bawa is without question Sri Lanka's most famous architect, so when one of his top proteges Channa Daswatte agreed to transform a 300-year old Dutch merchant house into a 14-room boutique hotel, you had to know the results would be spectacular, and they are.

..this 14 room hotel is in a seventeenth century Dutch merchant's house in the heart of Sri Lanka's historic, now hip, Galle Fort. Owners Karl Steinberg and Christopher Ong, exacting guests themselves, have trained the young staff to abandon Oriental bows for genuinely great service ...Ong oversees a daily menu of Asian favourites that draws deserved raves from across the island, particularly a Kung Pao Chicken that elevates the take out classic to haute cuisine. Dutch antiques fill the rooms, no two of which are alike..." - Cynthia Rosenfeld CONDE NAST TRAVELER The Best New Hotels of 2005

TAGS: hotels luxury srilanka

JUL

The Evason Hideaway Hotel In Central Vietnam Among 20 Hippest Hotels

The list is picked from Hip Hotel books produced by Herbert Ypma who has visited hundreds of resorts over the years. His nine books offer everything from Mediterranean beach retreats to Oriental palaces - all places that create the zeitgeist. "The hotel is in the most spectacularly beautiful spot, and you can only reach it by boat. It is a Robinson Crusoe beach on a mountainous peninsula overlooking a series of bays. The architecture is so inventive" said his book.

TAGS: awards hotels vietnam