Summary
This ESL lesson for B2 English students explores Business and hospitality. Using a real video as the basis for discussion, students develop reading and listening comprehension, vocabulary, and grammar skills across a 90-minute class.
The grammar focus is Passive Voice (Present and Past Simple). Key vocabulary includes obsolete (adjective), amenity (noun), rampant (adjective) and more, all drawn directly from the source material. The practical English section gives students useful phrases for real-life situations: You are at a hotel and have found an incorrect charge on your bill, possibly from the minibar. You need to speak to the front desk staff to resolve the issue politely but firmly..
Activities
- A warm-up discussion to activate prior knowledge and get students thinking about the topic before watching or reading.
- Comprehension exercises based on the video to check understanding of the main ideas and key details.
- A grammar focus on Passive Voice (Present and Past Simple). The passive voice is used when the focus is on the action, not the person or thing doing the action (the agent). We form it with the verb 'to be' (in the correct tense) + the past participle of the main verb.
- Vocabulary expansion with advanced expressions related to Business and hospitality not found in the source material.
- Practical English phrases for You are at a hotel and have found an incorrect charge on your bill, possibly from the minibar. You need to speak to the front desk staff to resolve the issue politely but firmly., with exercises to practise using them naturally.
- A speaking task where students role-play a real-world scenario, applying vocabulary and phrases from the lesson.
We've all been there countless hours of
traveling. Arriving at a hotel at odd hours,
tired, hungry, and tempted by the ultimate
convenience the hotel has to offer the minibar.
But a can of soda, a bag of stale chips and a
candy bar at 3 a.m.
adds up. In fact, it costs about 80% to 400%
more than what you paid for at the store.
You wanted it, and then you see the bill
two days later.
But initially, the minibar was put in
rooms. It was a novelty.
And then it sort of devolved into an annoyance.
And Minibars got the, uh, sort of the comedic
punchline of being undersized and overpriced.
But the sentiment around Minibars wasn't always
negative. In its heyday, minibars were often paired
with the feeling of luxury and the allure of traveling,
but the convenience factor wore off,
becoming a hassle for guests and an even bigger hassle
for hotels.
Traditional minibar operation would never be
profitable. They would always lose money.
It is seen to be one of the worst operations at the
hotel level.
Operational cost climbed.
Theft was rampant.
Food spoiled and guest guess preferences shifted.
Cnbc looked at why the once essential amenity became
obsolete. The minibar didn't go global until 1974,
when a Hilton hotel in Hong Kong started stocking its
in-room fridges with tiny liquor bottles inspired by
airlines.
Then comes cocktail time, offered with the compliments
of your host.
Airline drink sales soared 500% that year,
boosting Hilton's overall revenue by 5%.
The concept quickly spread worldwide.
Soon, minibar expanded beyond alcohol,
adding sodas, snacks and candy.
Hilton even standardized offerings so guests could
expect the same selections no matter where they stayed.
Yes. The travel.
Want to see items that they would find in their own
fridge at home? That's why you have Coke items or M&Ms
would always be a bit more profitable.
In the early days.
Operations were simple guests.
Your hotel staff would make note of what the guests had
taken. As hotels began to fill each room with
minibars. The amenity became a burden by the early
aughts. Some chains began phasing out the minibar
altogether, citing rising operational costs and
declining usage as primary drivers.
But besides the financial losses,
the logistical nightmare of constantly checking and
restocking proved to be a strain on hotels.
One factor that led to the, I guess,
the demise of the fully stocked minibar,
and that's rising labor cost and the cost replenishing
these in addition to cleaning the rooms.
One minibar attendant can visit about 100 rooms per
day. You would have four people.
Theft was another issue since not every guest would
consume from the minibar.
It could take days before a guest or hotel staff
discovered that the content of the bottles wasn't
actually vodka or whiskey, but instead water or tea.
Guest would dispute all charges contributing to a
time consuming and costly headache.
For years, one of Marriott's largest locations in Times
Square had eight full time staffers working its 150
minibars. But by 2004, that location moved all of
them. The proliferation of smart mini bars was an
effort to improve efficiency.
Nowadays it's much easier.
Everything is online and you would know where to go to
visit those rooms to refill those items.
Instead of going to visit every single room in the
hotel.
Bartek is one of the leaders in smart mini bars.
The company works with 1400 hotels worldwide.
Majority of them are luxury and high end properties.
Only about 1 in 3 guests use a minibar if available to
them. The average daily transaction is $12.
So for a hotel with 100 rooms,
roughly 33 of them generate about $400 in revenue on a
daily basis. Despite their modest usage,
automated minibars pay themselves in 9 to 18 months
and typically lasts up to a decade.
Today, manually operated minibars are pretty much
obsolete. Agario believes they're underused in
midscale hotels because the value customer can't justify
spending at the minibar.
The average daily rate is the most important factor.
For example, if the room rate was $75 Dollars per
night. You would.
It's unlikely you would purchase a $5 coupe.
Between 2007 and 2012.
Minibar revenues at hotels dropped by 28%,
while hotel lounge bars saw a 5% rise.
Surveyed U.S. travelers ranked Minibars as their
least desired amenity at a hotel.
Eventually, hotels emptied their minibars altogether,
letting guests use them for their own food and drinks
instead. Lobbies are becoming more of a focal
point.
What do you think about hotel lobbies? They went
through three stages and I call them three C's
communication, commerce and community.
So in the beginning, hotel lobbies were just a
place for you to communicate with your desk agent.
And then the addition of putting in revenue
generating amenities in the lobby so that you can have a
bar, you might have a little grab and go,
a little restaurant. And then in the most recent redo
of hotel lobbies, a lot of brands have
realized that they also need communal spaces.
Over the years, you've seen the evolution,
much like an open floor plan really coming,
and also with a little bit of labor.
Thinking that there could be more synergies and that you
could start to really fuze together.
And it's hard to distinguish,
really. Am I sitting in the bar or am I sitting in the
lobby? All of this is really to draw guests out of the
room.
In recent years, delivery apps have seen a
rise in popularity among hotel guests,
offering easy access to plenty of options among
local restaurants without the need to leave the hotel
room. Wyndham teamed up with DoorDash in 2019,
offering $0 delivery fees and 2000 signup points,
and it's over 3700 locations in the US.
Marriott Uber began its partnership in 2021,
letting guests earn hotel points when ordering with
Uber Eats from designated hotels.
In 2024, Hilton named Grubhub its go to delivery
service, giving guests perks like a free month of Grubhub
Plus. And so far, it's worked.
For example, the share of Uber Eats Marriott customers
grew twice as much as non Marriott customers between
2019 and 2025.
Instead of having room service open till 2 or 3 in
the morning, where they might get very few orders,
is to basically have guests order room service from the
entire location. So if you're in a city,
all restaurants in town that deliver are on your room
service menu.
While Value and Midscale hotels have done away with
the minibar almost entirely,
there are some segments that still find a need for them
at their hotels. Boutique hotels have reinvented the
minibar concept by replacing generic snacks and drinks
with curated displays of local goods.
Luxury hotels have gone even further,
offering specific guests fully customized mini bars
that they could choose from, with delivery apps and lobby
marketplaces offering more convenient options,
the once iconic minibar must now evolve or risk becoming
obsolete altogether.
One out of three guests will consume,
but if you have to check in every room,
you will lose the house, even if you sell Cokes for
$10.
Vocabulary focus
The vocabulary section introduces B2-level words and phrases related to Business and hospitality. Key terms include obsolete (adjective), amenity (noun), rampant (adjective), hassle (noun), devolved (verb). Students practise using these terms in context through exercises drawn from the source material.
Grammar focus
This lesson focuses on Passive Voice (Present and Past Simple). The passive voice is used when the focus is on the action, not the person or thing doing the action (the agent). We form it with the verb 'to be' (in the correct tense) + the past participle of the main verb.
The Death of the Hotel Minibar | B2 English Lesson
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