Metrics to compare accommodation
While various accommodation grading bodies make an effort to provide some markers for tourists against which to compare services, I recently experienced a stay which brought home quite a few inaccuracies.
When in London, we often stay at friends homes but on this occasion, all four of us decided to find a good hotel to stay in. We settled on a high end hotel in Central London- a hotel that boasted links all over the world. Not 5 star but 4 star with around 180 rooms and executive suites. Pleased to be looked after for a change, we entered a room which was the size of our standard double room. This was supposed to be a family room. Half the size of our family room !
No problem! We had a TV, i double bed and a sofa-cum bed and bathroom- but hello.... The bath is in a separate room from the lavatory. The lavatory with a commode only, is in a separate room. NO HAND BASIN IN THIS ROOM. How odd and old fashioned I think. Kids giggle at this strange split in the wash room facilities.
Ok, we find 2 cups ( for 4 of us) 1 HOT CHOCOLATE, 1 MILK. Mmm- I try not to make a big thing of this. I check in the shower room and find 1 set of towels. Ok- I call reception and have this rectified.
Later that evening we open the sofa cum bed for the girls. My youngest daughter tucks herself in but sinks to the ground. She giggles saying that she is stuck. I rushed around to pull her out and find that the middle of the bed had collapsed. Mark and I search around the bed to see if a leg had broken- but all seemed fine. On lifting the mattress up we find that most of the slats in the bed frame had split away from the frame and had just been positioned together - not glued- but just laid. It was impossible to put back together or fix it in an immovable lock.
We called Reception again. In walked a matronly woman and spoke with a strong eastern european accent. Extremely rude- not brusque- we can handle brusque- she insisted, without looking, that the bed was fine. After we showed her the offending bed, she placed the slats loosely, put the mattress back again and said " It is Ok, the bed! Dont move too much, it will be fine. No problem, you can sleep there".
Horrified, my tolerance slipped. This was unacceptable. Mark and I found ourselves thinking of our own reaction if this had happened in BM. We would have given up our own bed to make amends. No! the lady seemed to think that the broken bed was a luxury and we had no right to ask her to fix it.
An assertive phone call later, we were moved to another room. And then we went through the same rigmarole of asking for more cups, tea, hot chocolate and milk. We settled with 2 sets of towels - we decided it was easier to share than to call reception again.
In the morning- we found pre-cooked breakfast - all of which were mass-catered food. Not anything like the local farm produce we serve or even the individually cooked poached/ scrambled eggs. No soya milk or yoghurts.
What I am demonstrating is the impossible task of comparing accommodation. Comparing dissimilar accommodation is virtually impossible as the parameters and criteria for comparison are quite different.( unless you a whiz statistician). There are economies of scale involved in larger hotels where margins are made through their mass catering strategies. The smaller GA providers may charge similar tariffs as the larger hotels but the perk is in the personalized, individual service and cooked to order locally sourced food !
The next time you compare one accommodation provider with another please do so with care as you have to discipline yourself into understanding the differences and similarities if any>
