Hidden Costs Of Staying At Resorts

The hidden costs of staying at resorts rarely appear in the headline price. They tend to surface later, as a nightly fee added to the room rate, a service charge on a restaurant bill or a tax calculated on top of both. Travelers who compare only the advertised nightly rate can end up paying noticeably more than expected, and consumer advocates, regulators and journalists have spent years documenting how those extra charges work. This article reviews what is publicly reported about resort fees, how much they cost, how they play out in Las Vegas, and what a new federal pricing rule requires of lodging businesses.

Resort Fees: The Most Common Hidden Cost of a Resort Stay

A resort fee is a mandatory nightly charge added on top of the advertised room rate. According to a Fox News report on a NerdWallet study, these charges are often labeled as “destination” or “amenity” fees, and many hotels state that they cover access to amenities such as Wi-Fi, pools and fitness centers. The practical effect for a traveler is that the room price shown in search results is not the amount that will ultimately be charged.

The names vary widely. The advocacy group Travelers United notes that the same type of fee may be called an urban fee, an amenity fee, a destination fee, a destination amenity fee, a safe fee or a resort charge. The group argues that room rates excluding mandatory fees are deceptive, and it points out that these fees are often attached to properties that are not resorts in any traditional sense. That is the group’s position, and the hotel industry generally describes the fees as payment for bundled amenities.

The charge is also not limited to beach or desert destinations. A Wikipedia summary of reporting on the subject says that New York City had 15 hotels with resort fees in 2016, 84 in 2018 and more than 125 by 2020, where they are often called destination, facility or amenity fees. The same summary notes that two-star properties such as a Days Inn in Miami Beach and a Super 8 in Las Vegas have been reported to charge them.

How Much Resort Fees Cost Per Night and Why Figures Differ

Published averages differ because researchers sample different hotels in different years. Fox News reported on a NerdWallet study of 160 hotels that found some resort fees averaging about $33 per night, with a range of roughly $15 to $50 a day. An earlier NerdWallet analysis of more than 100 hotels in 2023, cited by Travelers United, found an average resort fee of $42.41, which amounted to about 11% of the overall nightly cost of the stay. A separate write-up of that analysis clarified that the $42.41 figure applies to hotels that charge a fee, while the average across all hotels, including those that charge nothing, was $10.40.

That distinction matters. The same write-up cited the American Hotel and Lodging Association as saying that about 6% of hotels charge resort fees, and that these tend to be properties with a larger set of amenities. In other words, resort fees are concentrated in particular hotels and destinations, such as Las Vegas and Hawaii, rather than spread evenly across the industry.

Las Vegas Resort Fees and the Gap Between Room Rate and Final Bill

Las Vegas is frequently cited as the clearest example of the gap between a displayed rate and the amount owed. Hotel News Resource reported that resort fees on the Strip typically range from $45 to $55 per night before tax, rising to around $62 with tax at luxury properties such as Aria, Bellagio, Wynn and Resorts World. By that outlet’s math, a $129 room can cost $190 or more once the fee is included. The same article cited a 2025 survey of 90 hotels in which the average fee was $40.04 before tax, an 11% increase over the previous year.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal separately reported costs of $44 to nearly $57 per night at Strip casino-hotels, noting that the highest fees are mostly found at high-end properties. It described Fontainebleau Las Vegas as charging $55 per night plus a resort fee tax of $7.36 per night. In other words, the tax is calculated on the fee itself, which adds another layer to the total.

A widely shared promotion illustrates how the structure works. Yahoo Finance, citing a breakdown from the travel site View from the Wing, reported that a Las Vegas hotel advertised rooms for $1 a night, but that the resort fee was required at check-in regardless of how low the base rate appeared. Some commentators have also claimed that hotels use resort fees to reduce commissions paid to booking platforms, since those commissions are typically based on the base room rate. That claim was reported secondhand and has not been confirmed by the companies involved.

Not every property has kept the fee. TheStreet reported that Sahara Las Vegas launched an “All-In Rate Experience” starting at $69 per night with no resort fee, which was available through October 2025, and that Resorts World temporarily waived its resort fee, described as a first for the Strip.

Service Charges, Gratuities and Taxes That Stack on Top

The resort fee is only one of several line items that can appear at a resort. TheStreet described a receipt shared by a Las Vegas Strip visitor that included a gratuity charge of $16.02, a service charge of $10 and a 22% tip of $19.58, along with $7.45 in sales tax, for a total of $142.05. The outlet noted that the customer was charged several separate fees that arguably cover the same service. The receipt is one guest’s account rather than a survey of industry practice, but it shows how automatic charges can accumulate on a single bill.

Taxes add another layer. As the Review-Journal’s reporting on the Fontainebleau shows, some jurisdictions apply a tax to the resort fee itself. Because a traveler’s total depends on both the fee and the tax applied to it, a resort that looks similar to another on price can produce a different final bill.

Industry figures suggest these charges are not small in aggregate. Travelers United cited a study estimating that hotel and resort fees would reach $2.7 billion in 2017, a 35% increase from 2012. That estimate is dated, but it is often used to show how long the fees have been growing.