Do you feel all warm and cozy when a crisply groomed check-in clerk hands you the keys, but just a little offput of he happens to be sporting a sprouting of facial hair? Just in time for Movember, the November-long moustache growing charity event, a Cornell study found that facial hair is a no-no for most men in the hospitality industry. A study published in Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, a publication of the Cornell School of Hotel Administration, found that hotel guests feel most confidence in smiling and attractive men and women behind the check-in counter and elsewhere in a hotel. No surprise there. The head-scratcher, though, is that when it comes to facial hair, white men should get out their razors for a clean cut, but African-American men can bring on the goatee. Hotel guests assigned greater "assurance ability" to clean-shaven men, but for reasons that aren't clear, this held true only for Caucasian men and not African-American men. "Assurance," for the sake of the study, translates to "an employee's knowledge and courtesy and their ability to convey trust and confidence."
Bearded hotel staffers don't cut it with guests
What makes a hotel employee seem helpful? Not facial hair, apparently.
November 7, 2013 at 8:36PM
It’s too soon to tell how much the immigration crackdown is to blame.
