Sorry for not answering this....
If you think about it, the only reason a hotel would EVER institute resort fees is to increase their revenues while advertising room rates that don't include that in the initial quote. All the things they say the fees pay for, WiFi, cable, pool towels, what have you, are hotel amenities. WiFi in particular has had a history of being surcharged for those who want to use it, but the rest of them are pretty standard hotel amenities. Their costs go in the Other Expenses block on the profit & loss statement. Traditionally, hotel revenues stood alone as the revenue line on a rooms division P&L. It makes perfect sense, to generate this much revenue, you need to spend X on housekeeping, Y on maintenance, Z on Front Desk and other service staff, A on the cable bill, B on pool amenities, C on toiletries, etc. Now, they are charging the guests separately for some of these costs, but if you look at the P&L, the expenses are in exactly the same place, and the Resort Fee Revenue is on a line right below Room Revenue in the Revenue block.
If you are on Travelocity, and you see a room rate for $115, you like it and book it. By the time you get to the screen that informs you that you will pay a $25 resort fee, you are already invested in the buy decision. If it listed for $140, you may have passed by and kept looking. The contrast is even starker in Las Vegas during slow season, when a $49 room special is actually running $74, 51% higher than the rate you think you are booking when you first click.
And one other supportive note: It has been mentioned that Las Vegas resorts now charge Resort fees. This is largely true. However, the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas does NOT charge a resort fee, or at least did not when I worked there. The reason was strategic....The Cosmo wanted to position itself as the HIGHEST average room rate in the market to establish a sense of elite status to the property. So it wanted max room revenue in the revenue per room night calculation, even though a $165 Cosmo night and a $145+$25 MGM room night cost exactly the same to the guest.