Your room is ready. Don’t mind the Picket Line.

At the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown, a towering luxury hotel with a rooftop pool and sweeping views of the city, Jason Hernandez said Monday things seemed normal. Housekeepers had cleaned his room. The lobby was tidy, if a little quiet.

It wasn’t until he stepped outside to encounter metal security barricades in front of the hotel doors and dozens of people marching, chanting and drumming that it became clear that his vacation plans had collided with a major strike by thousands of hotel workers.

About 15,000 housekeepers, cooks and receptionists across the region left their jobs over the weekend, demanding higher pay and better benefits. The strike, which began on Sunday, coincided with a July 4th long holiday weekend as thousands of visitors arrived for conventions, weddings and parties.

“You kind of forget it inside,” said Mr. Hernandez, 26, who was in town for Anime Expo, a celebration of Japanese animation, and dressed as a League of Legends character in a long brown loincloth with a teal jewel on his forehead. “Then it’s like, ‘Oh my God, all these crazy things are happening.’

Although Mr. Hernandez and friends had decided to splurge on a hotel room for the expo, which drew tens of thousands of fans to downtown Los Angeles, he said he wasn’t bothered by the commotion.

“I’m for the cause, so I don’t mind at all,” said Hernandez, a public school teacher in Orange County, south of Los Angeles. “It’s hard to live, just in general. Everything goes up.”

That’s a view that, according to the leaders of the workers’ union, Unite Here Local 11, is widely held – even among hotel guests and vacationers – in a region where workers say wages are not keeping pace with rents or the price of gas and groceries .

“The support in the community is overwhelming,” said Kurt Petersen, co-chair of the union. “Employees who are paid a living wage will make this city a better place.”

Outside several large downtown hotels on Monday morning, workers in red T-shirts that read “En Huelga” or “On Strike” mingled with groups of convention attendees wearing a variety of colorful wigs, little dresses or wizard robes.

Oscar Orellana, 30, pulled up in the shadows of the InterContinental and waved back to one of the drivers who honked as he passed.

Mr. Orellana has worked in the hotel’s housekeeping department for six years, ensuring that linen is supplied to every floor. His parents also worked for a long time in hotel housekeeping; his father was protesting at a nearby Ritz-Carlton, he said.

“I always saw my parents, and they loved their job, which made me want to get into the hotel business, and I love my job,” he said. But his three-hour round trip from Long Beach, about 25 miles away, along with his heavier workload and inability to afford the occasional sweet treat for his 4-year-old has made it “impossible for us to working there – that’s why we’re on strike here,” he said.

To the west, at the upscale Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows in Santa Monica, dozens of workers gathered outside the manicured flowering hedges that line the property. A few guests said that overall the hotel seemed to be running well, but they were frustrated by minor inconveniences – such as a shortage of clean towels – in such a pricey property. They also felt trapped in an awkward social position at a time when they just wanted to relax.

“I’m a union worker, so I can sympathize if they don’t get fair wages,” said John Smith, 38, who was visiting with his wife from San Bernardino.

But, he added, “we’re trying to enjoy the holidays – I took two days off for this.”

Just outside the property, on a street corner, a bride and groom posed for photos with their arms around each other. Yards away from them, striking workers could be seen marching in bright red and waving signs over their heads.

The hotel’s management did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Most hotels have contingency staffing plans and expect to provide guests with largely uninterrupted service, said Pete Hillan, a spokesperson for the Hotel Association of Los Angeles. For example, major hotel chains have taken workers from other properties not affected by the strike or asked managers to intervene, he added.

In the longer term, a high-profile strike on a major holiday weekend could tarnish Los Angeles’ reputation as a destination for convention planners, business travelers and tourists, he said.

“Why would they come to LA?” he asked. “People vote with their feet.”

The hotel workers’ strike is just the latest high-profile union action amid what California leaders are calling a “hot summer of work” as the struggle to pay the skyrocketing cost of living has sparked unusual levels of solidarity among workers in industries as diverse as public school assistants to longshoremen to Hollywood screenwriters.

Teamsters and nurses have shown up for picket lines outside Hollywood studios, where screenwriters have been on strike since May. This week, leaders of the Writers Guild of America, the union representing screenwriters, joined the protest of hotel workers.

Elected officials in Los Angeles — a Democratic stronghold where unions have amassed significant political power in recent decades — have also been eager to show their support for the striking workers.

Representative Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, picked up along with workers at a hotel near Universal Studios Hollywood on Sunday.

“They should be able to earn a decent income and wages,” Mr. Schiff told reporters. “I’m proud to be here and stand shoulder to shoulder with my siblings who are in labor.”

The union has asked that hourly wages, now $20 and $25 for housekeepers, be increased immediately by $5, followed by a $3 increase in each subsequent year of a three-year contract.

Hotel industry officials have said many of the union’s other demands — including additional compensation for guests at union hotels that would go to an employee housing fund — were attempts to saddle hotel operators with the costs of the region’s housing crisis.

Keith Grossman, a spokesman for a group of more than 40 hotels in Los Angeles and Orange Counties negotiating with the union, said: “Based on the actions of the union, it is clear that the union is not focused on the interests of our employees and its members and is instead focused on its political agenda.”

Mr Grossman said the hotels had offered to raise wages for housekeepers earning $25 an hour in Beverly Hills and downtown Los Angeles to more than $31 an hour by January 2027.

As the country heads into a hectic summer travel season, union leaders have declined to speculate whether the strike will last days, weeks or months. But they said workers would continue to protest until contract agreements were reached.

Kurtis Lee reporting contributed.