Free or charged? One clear list of what a stay includes

Nothing is included in a hotel stay beyond what the rate and the hotel's own published list say. Describe a stay in four buckets: what is in the room, what is in the rate, what is around the hotel, and what costs extra, with the price shown before the guest arrives.

A guest messages the desk at 23:40: is the minibar free, and are beach towels provided? The website says one thing, the confirmation says nothing, and the person on shift answers from memory. The complaint at checkout is written at that moment. This guide gives you a way to answer every such question before it is asked: one list per hotel, sorted into four buckets, with three possible answers per item, published in the same words on every channel.

What is included in a hotel stay?#

Only what the rate and the hotel's own published list say. There is no standard package every hotel follows, so the honest answer to a guest is a short list, not a sentence.

Sort every item into one of four buckets: in the room (the fittings and consumables that come with it), in the rate (meals, drinks, access, transfers), around the hotel (pool, beach, spa, parking, sunbeds) and charged extra (minibar, room service, laundry, late checkout). The same object can sit in a different bucket at the next hotel. A bottle of water may be complimentary on arrival and charged after; a safe may be free or carry a daily fee.

In the room is not the same as in the rate. A minibar can sit in the room and still be charged; the list has to say which. Star rating and Ministry certification are a separate question from price: this article does not rule on what a facility must provide, only on what a guest must be able to read before arriving.

The sentence "everything is included" is expensive. It produces a refund decision at the desk, made by a person who was not there when the promise was made. The test for the list is simple: if a guest can be surprised by it at checkout, it belongs on the page.

Where the guest meets each item differs, and that is the point of the split: room items are met alone in the room, rate items are named in the rate name, shared items are met at a staffed point of use, and extras are met on the bill. Each of those moments needs the answer in a different place.

Which items do guests ask about most?#

The same short list at every hotel: minibar, room service, towels, toiletries, kettle, safe, water, parking, sunbeds, spa, and what happens after midnight. Give each item one of three answers: included, charged with a price, or included with a condition (a deposit, a towel card, one per stay, only in a given room category).

Toiletries and towels: whether soap, shampoo and bath towels are provided is the hotel's own choice, not a universal rule. The list must say what this hotel provides, so a guest packing shampoo can read the answer before travelling. Towels split in two: bath towels belong to the room and are replaced on request or on a schedule, while pool and beach towels are often a card, a deposit or a per-change fee. Answer both.

Minibar: say whether it is stocked, how it is checked, and the price of each item. An empty minibar is also an answer, and a cheaper one than a dispute. Water is the most common surprise: state how many bottles, on arrival or daily, and whether the hotel considers its tap water drinkable, as the hotel's own statement of practice.

After midnight: whether room service, a bar or a cold plate is available when a night charter lands, which is the question late arrivals actually ask. The guide to late arrivals and night charters: rooms, food and check-in after midnight covers that flow in full. The small fittings guests pack around, kettle, iron, adapter, hairdryer, safe size for a laptop, each change what goes in the suitcase.

What changes with the board basis?#

The board basis sets the food and drink, not the room contents. Towels and shampoo do not change when a guest moves from bed and breakfast to all-inclusive, but the minibar, the beach bar and the à la carte restaurant often do.

Walk the ladder once: room only, bed and breakfast, half board, full board, all-inclusive, ultra all-inclusive. The full comparison of what each one normally covers sits in the guide to hotel board types explained: from room only to ultra all-inclusive. The same hotel sells several bases in the same week, so the list must be per basis, not per hotel, or the desk will quote the all-inclusive answer to a room-only guest.

All-inclusive is where surprises concentrate: which outlets are inside the band, which hours, whether the minibar is inside it, whether imported drinks are outside, whether the à la carte needs a reservation and a supplement. Half board hides the meal nobody mentions, lunch, and the drink with dinner. Say both.

Some rates carry non-food items: airport transfer, spa credit, late checkout, a welcome amenity. If it is in the rate, say so; if it is a gift, say what it covers and when it can be used. Build one grid rather than six paragraphs: rows are items, columns are board bases, each cell says included, charged with a price, or not available.

The cells above show the pattern, not a rule. Each hotel fills in its own grid, and the grid, not the desk's memory, becomes the answer.

In the room and around the hotel: why one list is not enough#

Room items and shared-facility items are consumed and controlled differently, so they belong on two lists with two owners.

In the room, housekeeping owns par stock and replacement, and the guest meets the item alone with no staff present. That list must be in the room, printed or on screen. Around the hotel, the item is staffed: pool, beach, spa, gym, parking, sunbeds, umbrellas, cabanas, doctor, laundry. The answer can be given at the point of use, but the price must still be visible before the guest commits.

Sunbeds and cabanas: free and first come, reserved for a fee, or charged per day. State the rule and the hour it applies from. Parking: free, charged per night, valet only, and the height or length limit that decides whether a van or a tour bus fits. Medical: whether a doctor is on call, whether the hotel charges for the call-out, and what the guest pays the clinic directly. Keep it factual and make no medical claim.

The cost side matters too. An item listed as included and restocked daily is a recurring cost. Choosing the list, setting par stock and controlling waste is its own discipline, covered in the guide to guest room amenities: choosing the list, setting par stock and controlling waste.

Where must the prices be shown?#

In Türkiye, the Price Tag Regulation requires tariffs and price lists for services to be posted where the service is provided, where consumers can easily see and read them, and every product offered with the service must appear in the list.

The instrument is the Fiyat Etiketi Yönetmeliği, published in the Resmî Gazete on 28 June 2014, No. 29044. Its Article 8 was rewritten on 11 October 2025 (No. 33044) and amended on 30 January 2026 (No. 33153), per the consolidated text on the Mevzuat Bilgi Sistemi (2026) (opens in a new tab).

Article 8(1): documents, signs, boards and similar items showing tariffs and price lists must be posted or placed at the workplace where the service is provided, where consumers can easily see and read them. Restaurants, cafés, patisseries and similar food-and-beverage places must also show them in front of each entrance door and on the tables. Article 8(2) allows those places to show price lists on the tables by QR code, but they must give the price list separately if the consumer asks. A QR code is not a substitute for a readable list on request.

Article 8(3): every product offered with the service must appear in the tariff and price list. The unnamed extra is exactly the item that ends up in a dispute. Article 8(6), as amended on 30 January 2026: any fee charged under any name beyond the listed prices must be shown in the tariff and price list, and food-and-beverage places may not ask for a service charge, table charge, cover charge or similar, without prejudice to Article 51 of Labour Law No. 4857.

Article 4 defines the sale price as the cash price including all taxes. Article 9 requires figures and letters to be legible, complete, true and not misleading, and prices to be written as "Türk Lirası", "TL" or the lira symbol, with exceptions for package tours and education abroad and for transport and accommodation services abroad. Article 10(2) requires the price for each unit to be shown separately when a service is sold in different units.

Two limits on this section: whether the food-and-beverage rules reach a hotel outlet that serves only resident guests was not verified, and this article does not rule on what a facility must provide. Confirm dates, penalties and your own case with your legal or accounting adviser.

Where does the list go so every channel says the same thing?#

One master list, written once, published in five places: the website, the confirmation, the in-room directory, the booking-site content and the guest app.

The master list is the source; every channel is a dated copy. If a channel cannot carry the full list, it carries the headline facts and a link to the page that can. The confirmation is the document the guest keeps and reads on the plane: it should carry the board basis, the extras included, and where the full list lives. The in-room directory carries the room-level and outlet-level detail, in the languages of the guest mix; what to include, and in print or on screen, is set out in the guide to the in-room guest directory.

Booking-site content fields are short. Use them for the three facts guests filter on, board basis, minibar and beach towels, and keep the detail on your own page. The guest app puts the list next to the bill, so an accepted offer and its price appear in the same place. AI Otel's guest app, built and ahead of launch, is designed to give every hotel its own app installed from the browser with no app store: the bill, room service, spa bookings, requests and offers in one place.

The desk script is the same three sentences at check-in, so the person and the page agree. A guest who hears a different answer will trust neither. The test: pick five items at random and check all five channels. Any disagreement between them is the bug, and it is cheaper to find it than to refund it.

Who keeps the list true each season?#

One named owner, one review date, and a version line printed on the page.

Split ownership by fact, not by department: the front office manager owns the guest-facing truth, revenue owns the rate-linked items, food and beverage owns outlet prices, housekeeping owns the in-room list. One of them signs the master copy. Name the triggers that force a review: season opening, any price change, a new outlet or a renovation, a change of board basis, a change of supplier for towels or minibar stock.

Print a version and a date on the page, so the desk can tell which copy a guest is holding when the two disagree. Keep a change log: who changed what, when, and which channels were updated. The confirmation sent yesterday is still in someone's inbox. Onboard new desk staff on the list in week one, and have them answer three test questions from it before they work a shift alone.

The complaint that still arrives after all this is a dispute about a charge, not about the list. Route it to the process for disputed charges at checkout rather than patching the page in a hurry.

What to do next#

Write the master list this week, in four buckets and three answer types, then check it against the five channels that carry it. The list is not a marketing page: it is the document that decides whether a guest is surprised at checkout, and it only works if one person signs it and every channel is a dated copy of the same text. If you want to see how the list and the bill can live in one place, request a briefing at https://ai-otel.com/contact.