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Turn Your Hotel Into an Office
Power Trip · August 18, 2003

You've got work to do, you're on the road and you need to turn your hotel room into an office. Hoteliers think they've got you covered.

They outfit their hotel rooms with thoughtful extras such as fax machines, two-line phones, high-speed Internet connections and oversize desks, all in the hope that you'll think of their hotel as a great place to work — and stay. Yes, an office away from your office.

But you know it's not that simple.

Why? Because most of these same hotels are unable to ignore the very different needs of leisure travelers. So your room also includes distractions such as a TV, minibar, magazines, chocolates on your pillow and room-service menus. Those diversions can make it difficult to get any serious work done.

An example of this lodging-industry dichotomy is the Doubletree chain. It's actually among my favorite hotel chains, if only because it offers free, fresh chocolate-chip cookies at check-in. But its "business casual" accommodations give you the best of both worlds — and in doing so, inadvertently make it difficult to do business.

The Sonoma, Calif., location where I recently stayed is a perfect example. My room came with two phones, two phone lines, a high-speed Internet connection (so far, so good), an iron and ironing board, a coffeemaker (no problem there) and . . . a TV and a Nintendo game system. Yikes. Not only that, but downstairs I found the Bacchus Restaurant & Wine Bar, which offered delicious swordfish and salmon entrees, and — true to its name — an extensive wine menu.

How do they expect me to accomplish anything in a place like that?

In fairness to Doubletree, it isn't the only hotel to court both business and leisure travelers. And I don't think it's realistic to expect any property to shun creature comforts and offer Spartan quarters in order to ensure the productivity of its jet-setting guests. So, to effectively transform your hotel room into an office, you must cope with at least a certain number of distractions.

But you also must make the most of your time. In a recent American Express International Business Traveler Survey, 16% of respondents complained of falling behind work while they were away from the office. I don't think it has to be that way.

Here are four tips for turning your room into an office:

Privacy, please. In order to create an office-like atmosphere, strip away the "hotel-isms" about your hotel. True, good hospitality means servicing your room frequently with fresh sheets, restocking the minibar, cleaning the bathrooms, or in some cases "turning down" your room by folding your covers and putting a chocolate on your pillow. But if you want to get work done, politely ask the hotel manager to leave you alone. Sharon Adcock, a Manhattan Beach, Calif., marketing consultant, has learned that the "do not disturb" sign isn't always enough. "Call the operator and ask her or him to put a do-not-disturb or hold-calls option on your room," she says.

Lose the distractions. A hotel room, as I've already mentioned, is full of diversions. If you have to work, make sure they don't get in the way. Take the minibar, for example. Not only can it become an expensive habit ($5 for a candy bar, anyone?) but it also will keep you from focusing on your work. I refuse my minibar key when I check in, and I know a lot of frequent travelers who do the same thing. Or how about the TV? You can surrender the remote control or you can do what Cat Mikkelsen, a consultant in Atherton, Calif., does. "At various times, we have had the maintenance crew come and remove the TV from our room," she says. (Note: Asking is one thing, but you shouldn't always expect the hotel to grant your request.)

Prioritize your communications. A certain amount of isolation is needed in order to get your work done, but don't overdo it. That's especially important when it comes to communication. Blocking your hotel phone can screen out unwanted calls, especially if you're at a conference and everyone knows which hotel you're in. But are the really important calls making it to you in time? William Mannino, a management consultant in West Palm Beach, Fla., makes sure his co-workers have his cell phone number when he's staying at a hotel so they can track him down. "If I don't want to get their calls, I can always turn my cell phone off," he says. But what about e-mail? Be sure your laptop is set to check the e-mail accounts to which your clients are sending mission-critical messages. There's no point in setting up a remote office if you can't get the information necessary to do your work.

Focus. That's perhaps the most difficult thing to do when your room overlooks the beach. How to ignore what's going on outside your room and zero in on what matters? A few weeks ago, I was "trapped" in a roomy condominium overlooking Sanibel Island, Fla., and I needed to write an article. For me, "focusing" meant sending the rest of my party away for the afternoon, turning off my phone, closing the curtains, the windows, turning my back to the stunning view of the harbor — and writing. I admire the kind of people who can work while a million things are happening around them. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them. After I achieved my focus, I was able to finish the story in a relatively short amount of time, and still had the rest of the afternoon to take my child to the beach.

With all due respect to the hotels that try to offer business amenities and services to travelers like me, one conclusion is probably unavoidable: A hotel is no substitute for your office. You'll probably never be as productive in a hotel room as you are back at your place of work.

At some point during your hotel stay, you'll look around and need something — a printout or a paper clip — and you'll realize you're not sitting at your own desk. You're in a room where some guests come to work, but most come to play.

That said, you can still get a lot of work done in a hotel room. So don't call it quits and open that minibar just yet.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator based in Key Largo, Fla. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion.