Submitted by Sasha Byck on the 2017 winter session program in Italy sponsored by the Department of English and the Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science…
As a Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Management major at the University of Delaware, I spent a majority of my time within the first week picking up on the quirky and different culture specifically regarding hotel standards. The first hotel that the group stayed in was a quaint property with antique looking furniture, costumed staff members and the type of Italian charm seen in movies. I was curious about many different aspects of the hotel, including how the elevator had floors -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, etc… and the zero was the lobby and other floors were dining rooms or the basement. One major difference of hotels in Italy and hotels in America are the room keys. Room keys in America are computerized and relatively uniform from hotel to hotel. While looking at the keys in various hotels in Italy, I noticed a common theme. Hotels keep room keys (which are actual keys, not cards with computerized chips) attached to 5-pound weights as key chains. The 5-pound weights are attached to the keys so people will leave their keys at the front. The way this varies in terms of America is that Americans put less trust in others so keys are extremely protected and Americans keep their keys to themselves. Italians place trust in the hotel and leave the key on the property, even when there is no front desk agent to watch over it. This cultural difference really came as a surprise to me as well as the antique quality of the common and somewhat old-fashioned key.