Twenty common hotel mistakes that ruin the guest experience
Modern hospitality repeatedly misses the mark, even in five-star establishments. These missteps drive me bonkers.
In the quest to be different and daring, many hotels branded across accommodation chains miss the point that the industry is meant to be about hospitality and warm welcomes. And with all the QR code scanning and DIY palaver afoot, what is even worse than expecting guests to pitch in and “manage their stay” is the lack of job prospects for young people keen to pursue a career in hospitality. It’s a situation that’s not just rife in modest hotels, but too many leading five-star properties where the long-held concept of personalised service is falling flat.
OK, so the factors are the state of the economy; the understandable emphasis on attracting younger and more tech-savvy clientele; hotel owners demanding more return on investment; and let’s just say it loud and clear … plain old-fashioned greed. Even so, regular hotel habitues like me are protesting not just about avarice, but a complete disconnect in common sense. Several decades ago, I was employed by an international hotel chain across three weeks to be an undercover hotel inspector and check out properties in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. I travelled and room-shared with a friend and we used her name as a “front” in case mine was recognisable.
Many of my findings were ultimately addressed but a few were summarily dismissed on grounds of “unrealistic concerns”. One of those was a choice of pillows. But these days you can’t enter a posh hotel room without falling over a pillow “menu” or a printed card with directions for booking a “bath butler” to draw your tub. Good luck with either. I’d “book” that Hungarian goose-down quilted pillow with cotton sateen casing right now, if I were you. The hotel will likely have only one available and you need to understand that it’s very popular.
1. Check-in
All that information you provided before check-in will have disappeared into a mysterious cloud from the moment you set foot in the foyer, so expect to have to verify yourself all over again. Self-service check-in stations in the lobby could assist you with this but they are often so non-intuitive that “human” staff have to be deployed to roam around and ask guests if they need help. Make sure you have three types of photo ID and evidence of your blood group plus a credit card handy for your “refundable” deposit, in case you take a shine to that fine Hungarian goose-down pillow and leave with it squashed in your bag/trousers/knickers.
2. Drinking water
Enticing bottles of artisan-produced water set by the bed at turndown service often appear to be complimentary but could come with a minibar charge. But if they are free, the card will likely advise they are “complementary” because who cares about grammar.
3. Throw cushions
Cushions every which way. Avalanches of the wretched things on the bed in myriad shapes and sizes and degrees of tassels. They need to be removed and stacked somewhere (anywhere) before you can hit the hay. On the plus side, if you fall over when nature calls in the night, at least it’s a soft landing.
4. Coat hangers
Fixed hangers lined up in jangling rows that require a degree in engineering to unswivel and hang garments. These can’t be removed easily by guests, of course, and have comprehensively replaced the plastic or wire versions that no one in their right mind would have nicked anyway.
5. Hotel information
Compendiums and other collateral printed in faint type on coloured paper and riddled with grammatical and spelling horrors; it’s actually a blessing if you can’t read them.
6. Telephone
Telephones that look like private exchanges with buttons bearing tiny images; be warned the drawings that resembles a room-service cloche could well be the fire alarm and vice-versa.
7. Power points
Power points, with or without the surely necessary USB ports, hidden behind bedside tables. Kneel and crawl along to plug in devices and then smash your head getting up. Blindly press random buttons on your little telephone exchange and hope a representative of every department turns up to administer first-aid, although possibly not the loyalty rewards scheme executive.
8. Room service
Instead of in-room dining (this used to be room service in the days when there actually was any service), there are QR codes to scan and place your order and therein lies lunacy. Ever accidentally ordered 10 Caesar salads and 100 gelati? And no human called the room to question such lunatic extravagance? Yep, me too.
9. Minibar milk
Tiny UHT cartons of long-life milk that spurt in the eye when opened and are always full cream (or yak or camel milk if staying at a “lifestyle” hotel); or dinky little capsules with tabs that inevitably end up torn away and then require a screwdriver to peel back. There will be no screwdriver, actually, but you could try pressing the phone button with the trickster fire alarm symbol and order a consoling club sandwich while you’re at it.
10. Coffee machines
Nespresso machines provided with an average of four capsules (two will be decaffeinated); why can’t hotels supply a few more and just hike up the room rate by $10, at least appearing to be generous, even though they couldn’t give a flying ristretto? Tiny cups and saucers with fiddly handles sit side by side for said coffee, or cheap and ghastly builder’s mugs in which an espresso looks like a layer of sludge. Spoons are a remarkable luxury and way too easy to nick. Get cracking with that paddle-pop stirrer.
11. Tea facilities
A selection of tea bags is always welcome, but not when there’s only one each of (surely) the world’s two favourites, English breakfast and Earl Grey. The others, in profusion, will likely be blends as bonkers as vanilla rooibos, maple and honey, and tomato and mint, and all the other unloved varieties. As for a teapot, good luck with that. Even kettles are endangered. Sugar? Read the artistic label carefully on that skinny little sleeve; it could well be saccharin or powdered milk.
12. Shower controls
Those dreaded mixer taps in showers or over baths that require know-how in rocket science to control. Either frozen or poached are the two most common outcomes. Consult your telephone exchange symbols for the emergency burns unit option.
13. Green credentials
Virtuous little cards asking guests to reuse towels. While it’s more than fine to save the planet one towel at a time, at least provide proper big ones, not mean little specimens barely wide enough to wrap around shampooed hair or conceal your private bits when you answer the door to the hotel’s cushion consultant, breezing in to inquire if you are feeling suitably bolstered.
14. Bathroom amenities
Huge containers of shampoo, hair conditioner, and hand and body wash bracketed to the bathroom wall. Invariably these will be overfilled and impossible to pump out. Avoid RSI wrist problems and pack your own travel-sized miniatures.
15. Lighting
Black lighting and control switches on fashionably dark walls that are therefore rendered virtually invisible, especially when needing to pop to the bathroom during the night. I always leave the ensuite mirror light on and the door slightly ajar rather than waste time randomly pressing bedside switches, one of which will always open the curtains. Conversely, there’ll often be one lone light in the corner, usually a forlorn standard lamp, that never turns off, despite how many switches (or emergency alarms) guests end up pressing.
16. Window coverings
Curtains, remote controlled or otherwise, that never completely close, leaving that one sneaky shaft of light to stab you wide awake at sunrise o’clock.
17. Communication
Front desk staff contacting guests via WhatsApp with various messages, in the weird belief that everyone has the app and, if so, checks it non-stop. Would I like my room serviced? Yes please; that’s why I pressed the button on the phone. That was the button with the stick figure sweeping. If I didn’t want my room serviced, I’d have pressed another button, but hopefully not the one with the person waving, because I thought that was a distress call, but apparently is the guest services fulfilment executive just saying “Hi, sucker!”.
18. Reading lights
Bedside reading lights that are either too weak or positioned too far away to angle towards the page; time to arm yourself with that trusty iPhone torch or try and nab the one that’s fastened in the wardrobe, along with dust-laden standbys such as a smoke-retardant blanket, fire extinguisher and Gideon Bible.
19. TV technology
TV systems that require Chromecast or demand app passwords or a working understanding of what HDMI stands for (high-definition multimedia interface, apparently) and how it can enhance your wellbeing. Just add, say, $20 to the room rate, for heaven’s sake, provide the streaming channels and save guests’ sanity. Or, here’s a thought, just watch free-to-air TV and fall straight to sleep.
20. At the bar
In hotel bars, diluting cocktails with who knows what (only water, hopefully) and filling half the glass with foam and minuscule flowers that stick to your lips; and let’s not pretend all this is to keep guests sober when it’s just pure greed and yet another serve of smoke and mirrors.
What infuriates you about hotels? Leave your gripes in the comments section below.
If you love to travel, sign up to our free weekly Travel + Luxury newsletter here.
To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Register
Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout