The golden rule of fees: if there are no circumstances under which you won't be charged the fee, then it should instead be incorporated into the base price. This sort of deception should be illegal.
https://www.fisherphillips.com/news-insights/8-things-los-an...
In short: it's worker protections.
Is there a "food safety fee" for following food safety requirements? Is there a "this building has adequate fire suppression" fee? This is basically a "we follow local labor laws" fee.
The cost of business increasing is not the issue here, although some people here may feel strongly about that. Passing that increase on as a fee is the deception we're discussing.
The cost of doing business should be baked into the overall nightly rate, (which is algorithmic and highly variable already, so there is no excuse not to) so that the price is upfront to the consumer and hotels can be compared apples to apples, rather than the consumer having to unravel whatever hollywood accounting scheme each hotel comes up with to make their rate appear as low as possible.
When you run an otherwise stable business and have records going back far enough it's pretty easy to see the "cost" of a any given change in how you run things especially if that change has a labor/materials impact that is pretty isolated and countable.
Basic accounting? If you used to pay $X for something and a new tax goes into effect that makes it $X * 5% tax, you can hide that into the overall price or be transparent to your customers about why your prices are increasing.
> they can shut down and find a job
Love it. The financial equivalent of "Why should I care about farmers? I buy my food at the store".
> Owning a business isn’t a right
If you're not allowed to independently make a living, but must be a wage slave for a different entity, then none of your other fundamental human rights really matter. The right to start your own business is one of the most fundamental human rights.
People also book hotels for their family members coming from elsewhere.