24

Today, while waiting a rather long time for a lift to take me just one floor, I got wondering. In almost all the hotels I stay in, the only option to get between reception and your room is to take a lift.

For a hotel with 10+ floors, I can see that making sense. Well, unless you're on the bottom few floors, and don't want to wait for the lift to travel all the way down to collect you! For a hotel with just a few floors, the lack of stairs for those who want them seems odd.

Actually, let me clarify that - the lack of useful stairs for getting between your room and reception/breakfast/the gym. The hotel I'm in now, in keeping with most of the ones I've spotted the problem in, does have staircases as part of their fire exits. However, these don't have a door on the ground floor, but instead have an alarmed door out into the carpark. Just what you want in the event of a fire, but not much help for avoiding the 3 minute lift wait when you just need to go one floor down for breakfast....

Does anyone know why so many hotels don't have usable guest staircases, especially for lower floors? Especially hotels that don't require a keycard in the lift

Gagravarr
  • 62,696
  • 48
  • 226
  • 449
  • 9
    Stick to the Netherlands, where steep, narrow staircases are the norm and lifts are exceptional. – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Mar 19 '13 at 00:00
  • 5
    @Gagravarr If I'm staying on the 1st or 2nd floor of a hotel, I nearly always use the stairs to go up & down. 9 times out of 10 its quicker. – Simon Mar 19 '13 at 11:25
  • 12
    Could you specify in which countries this actually happens ? Because in my home country, Germany, I never saw one hotel where you could not use both (and usable stairs are always there). And what about fire exits ? – Thorsten S. Mar 19 '13 at 14:01
  • 4
    Indeed. One could ask "why do so many people think their country is representative for the whole world". I've stayed in quite a few hotels that didn^t even have elevators... Often the nicest places I stayed in. – Krist van Besien Apr 23 '13 at 04:46
  • 4
    In my experience, hotels in the UK and Ireland do usually have stairs somewhere. Often they're quite hidden away, but search and ye shall find. – TRiG Apr 23 '13 at 19:00
  • 2
    @TRiG Some certainly do, but in many it's "seek you ye shall find... yourself in the carpark with the fire alarm going off"! (See paragraph 3 of my question) – Gagravarr Apr 24 '13 at 08:37
  • Anything still missing in the answer I gave? I am happy to elaborate more if you feel you need more info! – uncovery Mar 25 '14 at 03:58
  • 2
    Have you asked at the front desk? I have found many hotels prefer people to use the stairs for one or two floors, to safe the elevators for other occations and they often have a special set of stairs for that (to keep the fire escape route going out of the building) with the door in the restaurant or lobby area but not next to the lifts. – Willeke Sep 25 '16 at 10:05
  • 1
    I prefer to use the stairs, so I find out where they are. Also I like to inform myself about fire escape routes, and that means stairs. In all my life I have never encountered a hotel which did not have stairs as well as a lift. Sometimes they are well hidden or just unmarked, but mostly near the lift. or follow the fire escape signs (you should check out the fire escape anyway as soon as you arrive). – RedSonja Sep 26 '16 at 11:57
  • EVERY elevator I have seen (that I can remember in my 63 years) has had a sign warning to use the stairs instead if there is a fire. – WGroleau Sep 08 '17 at 21:16
  • @Abigail Certainly many very old European hotels favour stairs, as do some tiny ones, but on the whole I'd say the majority of the hotels I stay in in Europe have the missing/hidden stairs issue too. – Gagravarr Oct 07 '17 at 01:12

3 Answers3

34

Because they are not used. The vast majority of people do not use them. With luggage of course not. Elderly, handicapped, non-sporty people neither. The staff does not use them since they have to use the service lift. I am personally always surprised how many people prefer to wait for and take an elevator even if an escalator exists to go up/down only one floor.

On top of that, when they build stairs, they should suit the hotels branding aspirations. That means that they will take more space than a simple functional one and should ideally not be cased in with walls all around but open and light looking. But the space such nice, guest-suitable stairs (as opposed to emergency stairs) require costs a lot of money. You can use this space for rooms and other facilities that get you more rental income or amenities for the guests instead.

It is simply a bad return on investment.

Stairs to the lower floors are only available in newer hotels when there are function rooms on the one or two floors above the reception and they want to have a "grand staircase" for wedding couples or conference groups to take pictures on. And then they end there.

Andrew Ferrier
  • 12,368
  • 10
  • 61
  • 98
uncovery
  • 26,182
  • 1
  • 59
  • 113
  • 1
    People who are willing to use stairs don't mind if they are emergency ones. An access to the emergency stairs at the ground floor would be enough. +1 for your answer, -1 for the way of thinking of hotel builders. – mouviciel Mar 19 '13 at 09:08
  • 10
    @mouviciel please tell me where to downvote hotel companies! – uncovery Mar 19 '13 at 09:33
  • 4
    Don't forget building codes and laws that in many places REQUIRE elevators in corporate buildings (so anything not a home) if they're more than a certain number of floors tall (I believe 4 in the Netherlands for any building constructed after that law came into effect, they did not require retrofitting all old buildings). Thus, elevators have to be built and take up space and money already, so why duplicate the effort... – jwenting Mar 19 '13 at 12:13
  • 4
    @mouviciel in many buildings using the emergency stairs will automatically trigger the fire alarm, best not do that. – jwenting Mar 19 '13 at 12:15
  • 2
    I can't look up the reference now, but I did read this somewhere: one of the big reasons why hotels don't have stairs is that they create a branding problem because they need to match the decor of the hotel and it's just an expense they don't want to spend on. Besides the fact that stairs take up space where they could squeeze in more rooms. – Ankur Banerjee Apr 23 '13 at 04:49
  • @AnkurBanerjee sounds like you read it here :) – uncovery Apr 23 '13 at 04:50
  • @uncovery LOL, yeah, I meant it in the sense on a travel site. It would be good to add that as a reference if I could find it. I'll dig around a bit more to see if I can find it. – Ankur Banerjee Apr 23 '13 at 04:51
  • 7
    @jwenting The same building codes require them to have stairs for emergency evacuation and access during power cuts. – David Richerby May 31 '14 at 09:27
  • 1
    @DavidRicherby and those are usually hidden in remote corners, as inobtrusive and hidden as the laws allow. To the point where they're often locked, opening the door automatically setting off the fire alarm. – jwenting May 31 '14 at 14:23
  • 2
    @jwenting Sure. But the building code mandates the existence of stairs. So the building code cannot be the reason that many hotels force people to use the elevator except in emergencies, which seems to be what you were claiming. – David Richerby May 31 '14 at 17:59
  • 2
    @DavidRicherby: Building codes may limit the design and construction materials of emergency-egress stairwells in such a way that they could not be particularly inviting to guests. Further, a hotel which allows guests to access a certain area may incur an obligation to regularly clean and inspect it. Finally, hotels may wish to avoid having secluded semi-private areas which are accessible to persons who aren't guests. – supercat Dec 08 '14 at 17:43
  • How about liability to the hotel if a guest would have some accident (slipping?) in the stairs? – vasin1987 May 14 '15 at 04:00
  • 2
    @vasin1987 That's not relevant. Liability is only an issue if the hotel did not take reasonable precautions against accidents. People are expected to know how to walk down a staircase. If there is not a serious issue (water on the stairs, missing railing etc), someone slipping would need to cover damages themselves. – uncovery May 14 '15 at 04:28
  • Why so many upvotes on an answer that isn't true? I suppose it's true in some countries, but my experience in several is that stairs are required by law along with warnings to not use elevators in case of fire. – WGroleau Sep 08 '17 at 21:19
  • 1
    "That means that they will take more space than a simple functional one and should ideally not be cased in with walls all around but open and light looking. But the space such nice, guest-suitable stairs (as opposed to emergency stairs) require costs a lot of money." Not to mention that you might need emergency stairs anyway. At least in the US, stairs in high-rises don't count as a fire exit unless they're enclosed by fire walls and fire doors, – cpast Sep 08 '17 at 22:39
8

If the building has an elevator, stairs are a code requirement in all but the most ancient of buildings.

Bottom line is - if you see an elevator, there are stairs to lead to each floor the elevator services.

This doesn't mean the stairs are available for general use. This was the case when I stayed at a hotel in Budapest. I ended up using the stairs as the elevators were very slow - only to find out I cannot exit onto the floor because the door will trigger the fire alarm.

Burhan Khalid
  • 39,678
  • 4
  • 82
  • 157
6

This really depends on the hotel. Lower end hotels and especially motels do have stairs, particularly when they are built on an outdoor model (like an apartment complex or some area that doesn't have real winters). All of the nicer large hotels will have stairs, but as you noticed, there may not be entrance on the first floor. I've been to hotels where we had parties spread over multiple floors. Often the party goers will use the fire escape stairs to move from floor to floor. In larger hotels, this can quite a time saver. The stairs went to every floor but the first floor (because the are designed exit directly out of the building to safely, not to a lobby that might be a place of chaos in a fire).

Walter
  • 169
  • 1
  • 4