What is it with Hotels? I have to admit to having a problem with them.
The clue is in each hotel room. Central to the arrangement of most hotel rooms is a bed and a bed is generally, for sleeping in. And there we have the crux of where I find most hotels get it wrong. The whole notion that their guests basically just want to comatose, appears to be foreign to them. Because of this fundamental misunderstanding, much of what hotels provide becomes a waste of effort and money for all parties. People who want to sleep and or are asleep, do not require a conference suite, a swimming pool, a spa, a restaurant, a dining room, a library, a grand view of the city, an entertainment programme, a stage, a discotheque, wide screen television for sports coverage etc. etc.
We just want a bit of peace, and a toothbrush.
Instead, you get aggravation and cheap shampoo.
The problem with so called ‘facilities’ is generated in part by the hotel star system, which awards stars not on the quietness of the hotel and politeness of its staff, but on the breadth of it’s facilities.
I can accept there may be families and business travellers who intend to spend days and weeks in the hotel and need these things. In this case these quests should be directed to hotels which do not provide an environment for guests to sleep.
If I were head of the United Nations Peace on Earth Commission (if they don’t have one, they should), I would categorise hotels between places of rest and the rest. I would award ‘bed’ symbols for quietness rather than ‘stars’ for what are sources of sleep deprivation.
Perhaps it is time to give some examples of what I mean. I look back to earlier last year when I went with friends to a charming town in the Alpujarras in Southern Spain. The hotel where we stayed the night had a central courtyard around which corridors accessed private rooms. The floors and walls were compleltely tiled. This meant that every footstep was amplified depending on the size of guests steel toe caps. Every cough, conversation and slamming door, was heard by everyone. My friends in the morning, complained that they had to endure a woman talking for two hours on her mobile phone in the corridor, before they could get to sleep.
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