|
|
||
Porn-free hotels prove that 'cleanliness' isn't all in the dusting Date published: 5/25/2006
Porno-nomics
Forget the human beings on the loss ledger THE HARD-CORE PORN a couple of remote clicks away in many hotels--some around Fredericksburg--represents "found money," as the accountants say. An outside pay-per-view firm installs and maintains the system, and the hotel keeps a cut of the fee for each movie a guest watches. Entertainment-industry analyst Dennis McAlpine calculates that 80 percent of the money generated by in-room movies in "businessmen's hotels" comes via X-rated films. Furthermore, the Marriott and Westin chains, reports PBS' "Frontline" series, make more selling a la carte smut than they do the fancy-priced snacks and drinks in their mini-bars. In 2000, by one estimate, Marriott--which hopes to open a Courtyard hotel in Downtown Fredericksburg--took in more than $30 million a year, free and clear but for taxes, from movies depicting group sex and similarly refined fare. Yet some large hotel brands, uneasy about being part of a chain of exploitation that starts with a pimp and a camera and ends, often, with a family shattered by a husband's porn addiction (see yesterday's editorial, "X marks the Marriott"), shun in-room smut--even as hotels of all sizes are beginning to capture guest dollars by stressing that their premises are porn-free. In 1999, Omni Hotels, which operates 38 North American properties, banned X-rated movies from its 15,000 rooms, saying adieu to about $1.8 million a year. But Omni received 50,000 letters of thanks, and in time upped its movie-rental income by showing family films, says Janet LaRue, chief counsel for Concerned Women for America. Meanwhile, two Internet sites promote hotels that refuse to carry porn movies. CleanHotels.com lets travelers plug in a destination and trip dates, then produces a list of lodgings that, explains the site, allows guests to "book a room for your vacation, business trip, or meeting with the expectation, first, that you and your family or associates will not be exposed to pornographic movies and, secondly, that you will be supporting a facility that cares enough about the wellbeing of its customers not to make harmful pornographic movies available." CleanHotels chief Phil Burress says the site, whose listings are compiled by grass-roots volunteers, offers bookings at about 1300 hotels (including 14 in Greater Fredericksburg). Not bad for an effort just six months old.
1. Be respectful. No personal attacks.
|
|
|||||||||||||
