7-Eleven killed the minibar. The sentiments of one hotel manager in Hong Kong could well extend to hotels around the world. The hotel minibar, loved and cursed at by millions of desperate midnight snackers/drinkers, is on the decline. Hilton Hong Kong installed the world's first hotel minibar in 1974 by stocking liquors and fridges in each of its 840 rooms. The move reportedly led to a 500 % increase in room-service drink sales and a 5 % boost to the company's net income that year. Soon, the minibar became a near-universal industry standard. But Hilton recently started backtracking in some of its properties, removing the booze and leaving the fridges in its rooms, for guests to fill themselves. Other hotel giants, including the Grand Hyatt, Starwood and Marriott brands, are also phasing out this once ubiquitous in-room feature from some of their properties. It's because we just do n't seem to enjoy them as much as we once did. TripAdvisor recently released a survey that found the minibar ranked least popular among all hotel amenities -- just 21 % of respondents found the room fridge an important feature compared with 89 % that wanted a free wireless connection. PKF Hospitality Research found that in the United States, revenue from minibars, which represents just 1 % of total hotel revenue, fell 28 % from 2007 to 2012. Robert Mandelbaum, the firm's director of research