Hilton Puts Kibosh on In-Room TV Porn

After 20 years working in the travel industry, and 15 years writing about it, Tim Winship knows a thing or two about travel. Follow him on Twitter @twinship.

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Hilton will soon join the likes of Ritz-Carlton, Marriott, Omni, Drury, and Nordic Choice hotels in eliminating adult content from its in-room on-demand TV offerings.

Hilton released the following statement regarding the move to TravelPulse:

We are making immediate changes to our global brand standards to eliminate adult video-on-demand entertainment in all our hotels worldwide. While the vast majority of our properties already do not offer this content today, this content will be phased out of all other hotels subject to the terms of their contracts. We believe in offering our guests a high degree of choice and control during their stays with us, including Wi-Fi on personal devices. However, we have listened carefully to our customers and have determined that adult video-on-demand entertainment is not in keeping with our company’s vision and goals moving forward.

The statement makes no mention of what may have been one of the key drivers of the policy change: the stinging criticism of Hilton by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, which listed the hotel chain as one of the “12 leading contributors of sexual exploitation.” That may be overstating the case somewhat, but clearly Hilton’s corporate policy was out of step with current industry ethical standards.

Also left unsaid in the official statement is the likely financial aspect of the decision. Although Hilton isn’t divulging any relevant financial data, it stands to reason that revenues from on-demand TV programming, pornographic and otherwise, have eroded substantially as travelers increasingly rely on their own mobile devices for in-room entertainment. In other words, the financial incentive to allow adult programming isn’t what it used to be.

For whatever reasons, customers across all 12 Hilton brands will soon have one fewer option when it comes to in-room entertainment.

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This article originally appeared on FrequentFlier.com.

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