Amid the ongoing building boom in the U.S. hotel industry, one thing will be left unchanged: Most of the new high-rise hotels still cater to superstitious travelers by skipping the 13th floor.
“It was one of the first things I learned: Don’t go to 13,” says industry veteran J.W. “Bill” Marriott Jr., chairman of Marriott International.
Starwood and other big chains generally discourage hotel owners from designating a 13th floor. Nonetheless, in the last 18 months, Starwood opened four Westin hotels with 13th floors. It’s opened two hotels without them over the period.
Today, 13th floors are rare enough that many travelers say they’ve never seen one.
“In 11 years [of travel], I’ve never come across an elevator with a 13th-floor button,” says Keith Kaser.
So when a 20-story Embassy Suites opened in November in Tampa, Fla., with a 13th floor, it quickly became a conversation piece. Front desk clerks use it to “break the ice” with new guests, says front-desk manager Jeff Silsbee. Two guests have requested floor changes since the hotel opened in November, he says.
In the 1960s, some hotel brands surveyed guests to find out whether 13th floors would scare business away, says lodging consultant Bjorn Hanson of PricewaterhouseCoopers. The research proved inconclusive, yet most owners then continued to build high-rises where floor designations skipped from 12 to 14.
“God forbid you should offend any of your market,” says Joe McInerney, CEO of the American Hotel & Lodging Association.
A recent poll suggests a large majority of Americans — 87 percent — would be comfortable with a 13th floor room assignment. But 13 percent say they’d be bothered by a 13th floor room assignment, including 9 percent who would be sufficiently bothered to seek a room change.
The poll shows women, people age 65-plus and those with annual household incomes below $30,000 are more prone than average to seek a new room if assigned to the 13th floor.
Patricia Bowen, 71, of Fort Collins, Colo., is one of the poll respondents who said she’d request another floor. “A little superstitious, I guess,” says Bowen, an infrequent traveler.
