Hyatt becomes latest hotel company to remove on-demand porn in rooms

Another major hotel company is saying no to porn.

The Hyatt Hotel Corp., one of the country’s largest hotel operators, announced Wednesday that it will pull all adult entertainment from its guest rooms worldwide.

Hyatt is following the lead of Marriott International and Hilton Worldwide, other giant lodging companies that have already begun to eliminate porn from in-room entertainment systems.

Hyatt did not explain why it made the decision, saying only that “in-room programming choices are just one part of the guest experience Hyatt is constantly evaluating. As part of that process, Hyatt has made the decision to stop offering adult entertainment video on-demand at any Hyatt hotel.”

But hospitality experts say that the decision to remove pornography has been partly motivated by a steady drop in revenue from in-room entertainment throughout the industry as more guests turn to the Internet to download movies, games and video clips on their laptops and portable digital devices.

“The revenue from all in-room entertainment has been decreasing and the percent from adult entertainment has been decreasing even more,” said Bjorn Hanson, dean of New York University’s Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism and Sports Management.

A recent study by PKF Hospitality Research found that annual hotel revenue in the United States from in-room movie rentals -- including adult films -- dropped from $339 per room in 2000 to $107 in 2014.

Among other reasons for the decline in adult entertainment viewing in hotels is that credit card hacking has made more travelers leery of getting their credit card information exposed to show their hotel viewing preferences, Hanson said. Also, more women are traveling for business, pushing down the demand for adult entertainment in hotels, he added.

Marriott, among the world’s largest hotel groups with about 729,000 rooms, announced in 2011 that it would phase out adult content from its in-room entertainment choices.

Hilton Worldwide, with more than 731,000 rooms, announced last year that it had adopted a policy of removing all on-demand pornography from all of its properties.

Hyatt, which is based in Chicago and operates 618 properties with 160,000 rooms, has been under pressure by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation to remove adult entertainment from its hotels.

The group, which blames pornography for increasing prostitution and sexual exploitation, has produced a “Dirty Dozen” list of companies that it says profit from pornography. Hyatt has not been on the list, but the group removed Hilton from it this year after the hotel company changed its entertainment policy.

The organization issued a statement, saying it “is grateful to Hyatt for its policy change and commitment to oppose sexual exploitation.”

Hyatt said adult entertainment will be phased out as terms of contracts expire with each of the companies that provide Hyatt’s in-room TV shows, movies and other entertainment.

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