Travel How not to run a hotel My bugbears – and my dream hotels, by insider Jeremy Wayne
I
love good hotels. Who doesn’t? Clean, crisp sheets, bath towels the size of sails, hot and cold running room service – what can possibly be bad? Well, quite a lot, as it happens. My standards are simple and scrupulously fair. A hotel must be at least as comfortable as my own house, which is a pretty low bar since my house isn’t especially comfortable. But even the shabbiest home has advantages over the grandest hotel. At home, you know where the light switches are. You know the direction to turn the taps to make the shower water hot. Plus you have the ability to fix yourself a drink or rustle up a sandwich, any time of the day or night, with the minimum of fuss and without it costing an arm and a leg. Hotels, while they can obviously spoil you, can also irritate you in equal measure. Here, then, are my top hotel bugbears – and some hotels where such headaches are never likely to occur. 1. The googling concierge ‘Concierge’ and ‘Google’ are two nouns that should never be used 80 The Oldie June 2022
in the same phrase or sentence; their functions are entirely separate. The first is a hotel professional, a repository of essential information. Part-human encyclopedia, partconnoisseur, the perfect hotel concierge pairs his ability to ‘read’ the guest with intimate local knowledge. How many times have I asked a hotel concierge for a nugget of local intel – a barber shop, a florist, a train time – only to have him start tapping on his keyboard? These days, all travellers have smartphones – so any fool can google. We need an informed opinion, a point Always check the shower: Bates Motel
of view, an original recommendation or a secret hideaway – something we can’t discover for ourselves. Daniel Bethel, head concierge at the beautifully restored Cadogan Hotel, London (belmond.com), where Lillie Langtry once held court and from where, in 1895, Oscar Wilde was arrested in room 118, is not a googler. A member of Les Clefs d’Or, the association of elite concierges, for 19 years, he has a ‘black book’ of restaurant directors, doctors and museum curators. He can arrange an engagement party in the square (complete with string quartet) in no time or rustle up a private jet within a couple of hours, should you need one, all without googling. 2. The sensor-activated minibar You know the set-up: the hotel minibar that automatically charges you when you remove – or even, in some cases, merely touch – an item, regardless of whether or not you consume it. Look to see whether the label on that bottle of water says ‘still’ or ‘fizzy’, or remove a can of Coke to make space for your own bottle of milk or perhaps contact-lens solution, and find on departure that an additional 98 euros has been mysteriously added
