I’m on a diet, which is going well, I can see a difference around my middle and when I now ask ‘does my bum look big in this’ I know it doesn’t. But why am I sharing this with you? Generally I would spare you these details, but the diet has caused me a couple of problems that highlight issues within our industry and I wish to share them with you.
As you can probably guess, I spend a huge amount of my time travelling throughout the UK speaking at events and visiting members. I have to stay in many of our cities, sometimes in MIA member hotels and occasionally in non-member hotels.
At a non-member hotel recently, which will remain nameless and placeless, I popped down for an early breakfast where the waiter stopped me at the door and asked whether I would be eating a full breakfast at £29.00 or continental breakfast at £13.50. I was informed that the full breakfast would be served in this room (indicating a small breakfast room) and the continental would be served in this room (indicating yet another, but considerably larger, breakfast room). It seemed a little strange to me to be requiring guests to make breakfast choices even before they have reached a table and then segregating them accordingly, but I was prepared to go along with it because it was simply far too early to get into a debate.
So back to the diet, which means I have very specific breakfast requirements. I asked where I would be able to get Weetabix and fruit and was shown to the continental breakfast dining room. So far so good!
I approached the self-service breakfast buffet found the Weetabix and looked for the fruit, no fruit bowl in sight just a few pieces of dried fruit which according to my diet plan is loaded with sugars; not for me then!
I stopped a passing waiter and enquired as to the whereabouts of the fresh fruit; “on the full breakfast buffet in the other dining room” I was informed, and not available to continental breakfast diners. I queried this but was told that if I required fresh fruit the breakfast bill would be £29.00.
So, my choices on that morning; pay £13.50 for 2 Weetabix or pay £29.00 for a few berries to go on top of them. To the hotel’s credit, when I made my feelings known as I checked out, my breakfast was refunded in full.
However, I was left wondering; does the GM of that particular hotel, a 4 star hotel that prides itself on service, know what’s going on in his breakfast rooms? And, where will I stay next time I find myself in that particular city?
I know that examples of bad service like this are not common amongst UK hotels, but it doesn’t take very many operating in this way to reinforce the title of ‘rip off Britain’! Hotel’s like this one are handing our heads on a plate to those who continuously look for the next reason to rubbish tourism in Britain. Let’s not make it easy for them, I haven’t revealed the identity of this venue, but should we in future have a name and shame policy for bad service?
What’s your view?
Jane Evans
Chief Executive, MIA
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3 comments:
You are absolutely right, it does nothing for our business to be see to be mean, grasping and poor value. I pride our Conference Centre in offering an 'all inclusive price' and not charging extra for every additional service (the budget airlines are falling into this trap). Incidently I booked a hotel recently for the family at £90 a double without breakfast and £150 with breakfast ... does that make breakfast at £30 a head a record??
Yes - I think Jane's idea about a 'name and shame' list is right on the mark. Why should the bad and the ugly in the industry remain unpunished when the majority of providers are quality service practioners?
Kevin Egan.
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