Holiday Inn Hotels has a new customer offer for travelers called free "human bed warming services". Starting with Holiday Inn London Kensington Hotel, you too can have someone else sleep in your bed (before you do).
At customer request, a member of the Holiday Inn hotel staff will jump into [your] bed, dressed in an all-in-one sleeper suit that looks a hell of a lot like an adult Snuggie. Five minutes is apparently all it takes for that 'just-right' bed warming. "Like having a giant hot water bottle in your bed" is the description from Holiday Inn spokeswoman Jane Bednall. There are probably a multitude of other descriptions for 'human bed-warming', maybe including creepy or just plain f**d up.
Holiday Inn says the human bed-warmers will be equipped with a thermometer to measure the hotel bed's required temperature of 20 degrees Celsius (68 Fahrenheit). Where that thermometer is located on the bed-warmer remains a bit unclear. And you can just see husbands on business trips explaining this one to their wives-then again, the service is free, so it won't be appearing on any hotel billing, right?
Holiday Inn says the bed warmers will be fully 'dressed' (in that Snuggie-like outfit) and (apparently will in fact) leave the hotel bed before the customer/guest occupies it. Well, that's good to know that there's confirmation from the hotel that the employee won't be spending the night. Holiday Inn has not, yes not, confirmed that the human bed warmer will shower first, only that hair will be covered. That seems to have its definite up and downsides-who wants a random Holiday Inn employee in their fresh hotel bed, unshowered...but on the upside, apparently that means the employee isn't showering in your hotel shower first.
Whose idea is this human bed-warming, and how exactly did this get past top executives with Holiday Inn? The customer complaints on this one are bound to be good-even great. Dressed in a head-to-toe Snuggie-esque costume or not, do customers really want someone in their hotel bed. What customer wants someone in the bed they've paid for, really? Especially a 'someone' you're not sleeping with? Holiday Inn may have overlooked the potential of sexual harassments suits related to this one.
Holiday Inn's got a lot of locations- about 4,000 in the chain throughout the world, and says institution of the human bed warmers idea is somehow related to celebration of its 3,600 new locations. The hotel chain is starting its human bed warmers option at only three UK locations right now-supposedly this 'idea' is related to the cold winters (hello, Holiday Inn, that relation also applies to conception).
No word yet from the hotel chain as to if or when this 'human bed-warming' idea is spreading to the U.S. hotels locations. Based on how U.S. citizens tend to feel about personal space, it's a bit hard to see that idea successfully spreading to these parts.
Doctor Chris Idzikowski, Edinburgh Sleep Centre Director, suggests Holiday Inn's human new bed-warming idea could help travelers get off to sleep quicker. Um... either customers are going to sleep better or have some vivid nightmares. Can't be a lot of in-between with consumer reactions to this one.
Doctor Idzikowski claims "there's plenty of scientific evidence to show that sleep starts at the beginning of the night, when body temperature starts to drop. A warm bed, approximately 20 to 24 degrees Celcius, is a good way to start this process whereas a cold bed would inhibit sleep." Yeah, ok, but nobody discussed the psychological impact of having some stranger in your bed only minutes before you're crawling into it. "Holiday Inn's new bed warmers service should not that 'should') help people achieve a good night's sleep, especially as it's taking much longer for them to warm up when they come in from the snow." That's a really big "should", Holiday Inn.