If you do not have to leave the city you are staying in until late in the afternoon or in the evening, you are forced to give up your room way before you actually need and probably want to.

Likewise, if you arrive early at your destination, you might have to wait hours before you actually have access to your room. Fortunately, though, there are signs that the hotel industry might soon eliminate standard check-in and check-out times at hotels.

According to Yahoo, a new trend is emerging which has resulted in some hotels adopting a 24-hour check-in/check-out policy. The idea is that if you want to check-in at 10am, you would have access to your room until 10am of your check-out date, and if you want to check-in at 10pm, you would have access to your room until 10pm of your check-out date.

This policy has been in effect at The Peninsula Beverly Hills since 2012, while Capella Hotels and Resorts has instituted this policy across all of its properties.

Major hotel chains have been slower in considering a 24-hour check-in/check-out policy. However, The Ritz-Carlton, in Charlotte USA, has adopted this policy for every night of the week after initially testing it out as a Saturday-only offering.

Of course, the biggest obstacle to a 24-hour check-in/check-out policy becoming standard in the hotel industry is the planning and coordination that would be required. The current standard check-out time of 11am coupled with the current standard check-in time of 3pm provides hotels enough time to make sure all rooms are ready for new guests.

However, surely there is technology already in place that would enable hotels to smoothly implement a 24-hour check-in/check-out policy. It is just a matter of them making the necessary investment for such technology.

Travel companies are experts at copying each other with both positive and negative changes. Therefore, I truly believe that as soon as one of the major international hotel companies installs a 24-hour check-in/check-out policy, others will soon follow. I am eager to see which hotel company will be the first to do so.

Source: http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-advice/hotel-check-in-times-may-soon-be-a-thing-of-the-past/story-fn6yjmti-1227337597232