Travel Agent - August 27, 2007 - (Page 23) employees to take a tip after they have already turned it down. The policy is not a suggestion: An employee can get fired for accepting tips at both Sandals and SuperClubs. There is, however, one exception to the rule at Sandals: butler service, which is available at most Sandals resorts. We learned during our recent Sandals property tour in Jamaica that a butler usually receives between $10 and $20 per day. You can tip butlers at the end of your stay and include the tip in your room bill, so you don’t have to bother tipping your much to tip, when to leave the tip, etc.,” SuperClubs’ Executive Chairman John Issa told Travel Agent. “SuperClubs wanted to remove this unpleasantness—and pressure—from our guests’ experience. Our Super Inclusive vacations have always been completely hassle-free.” Tipping on a Cruise Ship Generally, tipping can be a touchy subject. Just as no two tippers are alike, cruise lines’ policies vary widely. Each has its own tipping personality that can vary from stingy to munificent, but either changed with the proliferation of specialty restaurants and the trend toward open dining, where having the same wait staff each time is less common. Where tipping isn’t calculated into the bill, try to walk the tightrope of being both magnanimous and frugal. If the cruise line throws on a 15 percent gratuity on a $1.75 soda, you may throw in an extra dollar for the server who brings it to you while you’re sitting by the pool. For cabin stewards, it’s a little different, and it depends on how long your cruise is. For a three-day voyage, you may give Heinke McDade, McDade Travel (left); Anastasia Mann, the Corniche Group (center); John Clifford, International Travel Management butler every time he or she provides a service for you. This one exception exists because guests in this category insisted. Butlers provide such highly personalized tasks— from unpacking to retrieving a forgotten novel on the nightstand and fielding countless other requests— that Sandals’ Butler Suite guests have repeatedly asked for the ability to thank them, according to Sandals’ representatives. However, it is not required and not expected. In addition, Sandals has made no suggestions in terms of what might be an appropriate tip. Through word of mouth, however, we learned that the $10-$20 per day range is pretty safe, depending on how much you actually use your butler. At SuperClubs, the rationale behind not tipping is to eliminate the stress of tipping often felt by guests. “We know that most travelers feel that tipping is one of the stresses of a vacation—how way, it’s important that the tireless workers who bring such great service aboard cruise ships be rewarded for their efforts. Because tipping can be so arbitrary, the cruise lines have, in some regards, taken over the process to make it easier for guests and fairer for employees. Some, such as Carnival Cruise Lines, build gratuities into a passenger’s final folio, so it’s more like a service charge than an actual tip. This makes the task less time-consuming for cruisers, while at the same time less subjective. Carnival charges $10 per guest, per day, and the total amount shows up on a customer’s bill at the end of the voyage. Taking discretion out of tipping was done for two reasons. One, many more Europeans are traveling on cruise ships, and their culture of tipping is far different from Americans’: Many don’t tip at all. So adding it as a service charge makes sense. Two, dining culture has your cabin steward $10 at the end of the journey, which can oscillate up or down depending on the quality of service and how much you use the steward each day. The cabin steward is the one person you’ll see most frequently, and the one you may have the best relationship with. Why not reward him or her? As many know, the cruise lines don’t pay the best salaries and tips are a major source of income for the service workers. Before you send your clients out on their next international vacation, whether tour, cruise or FIT, check online or consult the property, tour operator or cruise line that you’ve booked with about its tipping policy. Once you have it figured out, make sure to calculate it into the estimate you provide for your clients. — Jennifer Merritt, Joe Pike, Dave Eisen and Dan Butcher August 27, 2007 TravelAgent 23
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