Cultured Views

Hotel owners - what language should you speak…?

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Wouldn’t it be great if there was a facility, even one very much with tongue-in-cheek, for hotel owners to rate their guests individually just as the guests are able to rate hotels?

I think it would be wonderful. What categories could we use:

* attitude

* in-room cleanliness (taking in those who cannot work out what a toilet flush is for - or a waste bin for that matter)

* behaviour/table manners in dining room

* friendliness/consideration towards other guests

“Yes”, I can hear you say, wouldn’t it be fun…

That last point though is what I particularly would like to be able to rate some guests on - and I have to admit I would be brutal in this regard. How some guests treat other guests can be quite surprising - especially when the some guests are natives of the country the hotel is in and the other guests are those dreaded foreigners.

Take France for example. We are noticing an increasing number of French guests who seem quite affronted when they encounter fellow guests who do not speak French - and naturally - because those other guests are not French! in fact they are even going to the trouble of registering complaints about it…

I accept that the French basically do not travel that widely outside of France, if at all, so some of them are not used to people of other nationalities. They arrive at a little hotel somewhere in their beloved France and of course expect to greeted in their own language - which they are, maybe not absolutely fluently - but their language all the same. But what puzzles me is why on earth they object to their hosts greeting other guests in the language those other guests speak…?

Why should the host rattle off a barrage of French to a Spanish couple when the host can speak fluent Spanish and thus communicate more politely and amiably with them…? why would the hosts deliberately make communication with their American guests impossible by speaking in French to them when both they, and you, are native English speakers…?

The one thing we love about this job is clearly obvious during breakfast times when all our guests are eating in the dining room; a variety of nationalities - Italian, English, Dutch, German, Spanish and even Slovakian - and all chatting away between themselves in their own native tongues, a nice mix of cultures and languages. And in the middle of them all sits a French couple offended that they are doing so…

Certainly when we go on holiday we chat in english between ourselves and have some fun attempting the local lingo with the ‘natives’. But - and I wish that some French would learn this - it is just not practical, nor at all necessary, to expect your guests to be anything other than who they are. It is where they come from that makes them so interesting.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Own up…what do YOU pinch from a hotel?

It never ceases to amaze me how some people assume that paying to stay in a hotel room also entitles them to consider various items in their room - even the hotel itself - as souvenirs to be collected and taken home.

We have had guests with this very attitude. One couple not only packed their clothes before they left but also the cover off the bed; we have had a lamp go missing; countless pieces of cutlery, cups and glasses.

Of course the magazines we provide also find their way into guests luggage - but that’s okay as magazines are dispensible and we replace them on a weekly basis anyway…

We ourselves have been guilty too - I once borrowed a teacup from a room and my partner likes those little promotional pens some hotels place in the rooms with the hotel emblem-embossed writing paper. We have quite a collection of those!

But our prize for the most brazen goes to some recent guests - a family of three - who arrived with their own pillows and then exchanged them for our new ones. I hope they enjoy reading their credit card statement next month…

Popularity: 8% [?]

The customer is always right…? not according to Basil Fawlty

I would like to take the words ‘the customer is always right ‘ and rub them in the face of the moron who coined the phrase in the first place.

Because the customer is not always right; sometimes right ? yes - deluded? occasionally yes; but never always right. The person who took these words and then placed them in the vocabulary of consumers obviously never owned a restaurant, a hotel, a shop or a business where one deals with the public.

He/she never manned the complaints/returns counter of a store; never had the brilliant idea of running accommodation in order to be their own boss and ‘enjoy working with people’; they never worked in a restaurant and served good food to people with poor taste…

No, but those of us who have to stand, smile (often through gritted teeth) and have that phrase quoted to us by overbearing and self-important know-alls have done all these things. I quite like another phrase because it is so apt: ” If it wasn’t for the guests I would get some work done around here ”. Because in many ways it is so true.

Take running a hotel for instance; the guests actually count for only a percentage of your duties - administration swallows up the rest of your time - and sanity - leaving just the remnants of your good humour and patience at the mercy of a few certain guests. And no, the good one’s sometimes do not make up for the bad one’s - a hurricane is far more destructive than a hot sunny day…

One hotel manager in the UK, Andy Hageman (pictured left), has been dubbed a real life Basil Fawlty after he took that annoying phrase and threw it in the bin - metaphorically of course. A guest complained about not being able to sleep through the night and on checking out the next day stated he would not be paying his bill. Mr Hageman, no sufferer of fools, told this man in no uncertain terms that he must pay his bill whereby the guest assaulted him.

For one thing this guest used a room and it’s facilities for the duration of his stay and he did not attempt to register his complaint when the ‘inconvenience’ was being experienced - if he had he could have been reallocated another room.

In this business there are a minority of people who will try any trick to get something for nothing, some have tried it on us certainly. Any guest we have had with a grievance, and you are bound to get a few from time to time, are offered a bottle of wine - we never waive the room charge. And to date this has worked quite well…with the exception of one rather obstreperous couple. Also, as a seasoned traveller myself, if I want to be treated with respect I make sure I behave in a way worthy of such. My money does not entitle me to be a complete a**h***.

And don’t give me that ‘ the customer can make or break you ‘ nonsense; it is more likely that extortionate taxes and dishonest employee’s that will cause a business to fail before any customers manage to do so.

But when it comes down to it you know the majority of your guests really are looking to enjoy themselves and your hospitality - and that’s what keeps us going

Popularity: 8% [?]