I love a good idea. Especially when it’s a fresh re-think of an established, long-held – but not necessarily logical – concept or practice.

For example . . .

Check-in/check-out times. Almost without exception, hotels require you to check out at 11ish, and discourage check-in before 2ish. Is there some magic about those times? What about the traveler who arrives on a red-eye at 7am and has a lunch meeting at noon? Sure, he/she can take the chance that the room will be available when they arrive at the hotel at 9 in the morning. But what if it isn’t? Pay for another room night? Shower and change in the spa?

Meanwhile, hotels compete for customers by advertising their discounts and thread counts. And they put stress on their housekeeping staff to get rooms cleaned within that 3-hour window. And customers stand in interminably long lines to get checked in.

My friend Melinda, who is in the hotel industry, posted this picture on Facebook. It’s the check-in line at a Vegas hotel. Imagine how much casino revenue could have been generated if these guests weren’t waiting to get a room key!

Hey, hotel people: Why not think a little more creatively about how to conform to the customer’s time schedule and constraints?

There’s a boutique hotel brand in Australia that is thinking outside the box. Naturally, they are artists (who always think differently). They’ve got a concept called “Overstay Checkout.”

This promotion earned the hotel company great PR, a huge influx of bookings and revenue during an off-peak period.

Or, how about this: Why not simply define the check-out time to be 20ish hours after whatever time the guest has checked in?

I googled “innovative hotel ideas” and clicked on a link to a Travel + Leisure article titled, “Innovative Hotel Check-Ins.” It described examples of technological advances of roving staff with iPads to handle check-in as they escort arriving guests to their rooms. Or an airport concierge service to meet arriving guests, escort them to their TownCar waiting at curbside (for a fee, of course), and invite them to order from the room-service menu on the backseat so lunch will be ready and waiting when they arrive. Good ideas, yes. But truly innovative? Not so much (in my opinion).

Here’s another one: How about luggage racks to accommodate today’s popular hard-sided suitcases that open to twice the size of the old top-loading soft-sided bags?

At left, a typical hotel luggage rack. At right, a typical hard-sided suitcase. See the problem?

And while I’m on my rant … Why do they consistently hide the electrical outlets behind the heaviest piece of furniture in a hotel room?

And my biggest complaint? Why is it so hard to reunite guests with the items they’ve left behind in drawers, closets and electrical outlets? In my MANY years of traveling, I have never had a hotel contact me to advise me about things I’ve forgotten when I checked out. In one case, I’d left a brand-new Bluetooth headset plugged into the bedside table. I remembered it a few hours after I checked out and called the property (a luxury brand, no less!). Nope – nobody had seen it. Are you kidding me??

I would gladly pay for the cost of shipping those favorite jeans, or that colorful peasant skirt or my most flattering turquoise jacket – plus a handsome “finder’s fee” to the housekeeper who found it. I’d be happy, the housekeeper would be rewarded and the hotel would benefit from my goodwill and gratitude. Can such a simple, logical and reasonable concept be so difficult?

Here’s another novel idea, from the same think-outside-the-norm hotel group in Australia: reverse reviews. 

The sad truth is that some hotel guests behave badly, whether it’s trashing a room, stealing items or berating staff.

In one year, this is what was stolen from the Art Series Hotel’s five properties in Australia.

And then some of these same people have the audacity to post negative online reviews about the property! Similar to that of Uber and other companies, the hotel group conceived of a way for staff to rate their guests.

The campaign was a staggering success. With a budget of $60,000, they earned $1.4 million in media coverage.

The reverse reviews campaign was a runaway success on many levels.

The bottom line: Items stolen: zero. Staff were happier. And so were the customers.

Hmmm: Happy customers + happy staff. Sounds like a winning formula!

As always, I asked my husband to proof-read this blog. He had a contribution: why do hotels decorate with wall art that nobody appreciates? (At least he didn’t notice!)

Scott has never lived this down. How could he NOT notice the mural over the bed in our Rome hotel?

What about you? What is your pet peeve at hotels?