Hotel prices - UK v the Others
I have just taken part in a radio discussion on 'Why hotels here are so expensive''. I wonder if, underlying everything else, there is a new(ish) culture of greed in this country. We are obsessed by the cost, and value, of our houses; we rush to snap up houses wherever they are cheap (France, Spain and now Bulgaria), largely just to avoid missing the bandwagon. We pay our fat-cat CEOs over 200 times more than their employees - and accept it as normal. We are all part of a hectic rat-race to the bottom. Our European cousins may well copy us one day, but meanwhile there remains a gentler attitude to money and success, especially in the south. No wonder that hotel prices are lower there.
Having said all that, our books DO succeed in tracking down the hotel-owners who sing from a different score. They are by no means all part of the grim, bigger picture.
posted by Alastair @ 3:43 pm
10 comments
10 Comments:
I couldn't agree more. However it's a pity that your SPECIAL PLACES TO STAY are not as well-known as they should be. Your guides are not as prominent in bookshops as one would wish, and many people I talk to have never heard of them. It may be a good thing to keep the 'special places' a secret, and as far as we are concerned they are the lifeblood of our guest house, and we have a steady trickle of visitors who are Sawday fans, and I think of them as special too. So I have no complaint on that score.
To change the topic a little, I have a problem regarding nmenclature. I am never sure how to call our place: is it a B&B, a Guest House or a Hotel? We charge from 60 to 70 pounds per room per night, but in terms of Bed and Breakfast that sounds a bit expensive. Yet in reality our rooms are more stylish than some hotel rooms at double that price. (Sorry about the arrogance!) Maybe we should forget about tags, and simply call our place home. This is where we welcome guests as if they were friends. Have a look at our website: www.ygoedeneirin.co.uk (remember to click on 'English' if you don't understand the Welsh text).
I couldn't agree with you more. I stayed at a Marriott hotel this week. I normally choose B&B for work travel but this was booked for me by another company. The room rate was £140/night. What really got to me was they wanted £5 to park, they wanted to charge for use of internet, a 3 course evening meal was £25 and they had the cheek to charge an extra £2.95 per portion of veg (non-organic). Wine was ridiculously expensive at around £18/bottle for house wine, as was the bar - charging £3.40 for a pint of ordinary beer. It makes one feel like a 'milk cow'. Staff were friendly, but service generally poor. There was no attempt to meet any improved environmental minimisation criteria, only to squeeze as much money out of you as possible.
I would agree with you entirely. And things are no better on the other side of the Pond... hotels in NYC that used to be affordable, are now charging in excess of $700/night (no breakfast included). It's just insane!
Thanks, John. I am a bit alarmed to know that our Special Places are less well-known than they should be. That is not for want of trying. Our PR department (Sarah) has to battle to keep abreast of all the requests for news and articles. Is it just that we are not mass-market? But do, please, make a fuss when a book shop is not doing its stuff - and let me know if there is a special reason.
As for 'nomenclature' - well, B&Bs have changed, so perhaps it is OK to use the term. Maybe we need a new term for those at the cheaper end of the market. I only wish there were more of them that are special.
I'm rather afraid it may be the same as restaurants - in France, where I live half the time, or even in Barcelona which I know well, we can get a good set meal for nine to thirteen euros (and 13 euros gets you a very good set lunch indeed at the Quatre Gats in Barcelona). In the UK that will now just about get you a pub lunch, and often not a good one.
I think there's more of a feeling in France that a decent lunch or dinner is a human right - for everyone, not just the wealthy and middle class. One of the ten best meals I've ever had was in a relais routier near Toulouse - I was on a cycling holiday and came down in jeans and t-shirt, desperately thinking I would be underdressed. No fear! It really was a relais routier, full of truckers, all tucking in to an excellent meal (magret de canard in peppercorn sauce was on the menu - this was not a greasy spoon!)
The relentless 'aspirational' pull has also led to everyone lurching upmarket - every darn hotel going seems to claim four or five stars (though the service rarely backs up that claim). The same problem with the Guardian - sells a lot of issues to teachers and social workers but still wants to feature a nice little black dress for six hundred quid or so in the weekend magazine!
How do your guides judge a special place to stay? Is it the size of the cheque they pay to be in the guide?
justicepickles...
My holiday home is included in the French Holiday Homes guide, and I can vouch that we had to jump through hoops to be included. We had a very thorough inspection visit which took nearly 3 hours, and although we do have to pay to be included in the book and website, the cost is minimal, no more expensive than other major online rental listing sites which feature thousands of properties, none of which have been inspected. I do know of at least one person who applied to be in the guide, and who has a very nice property, yet it was still rejected after the inspection, even though they were ready to pay (and they didn't have to pay for the inspection, so who was funding the cost of the inspector's time and travelling expenses?)
While hotel costs in the west are often outrageous, we have the opposite problem in Nepal - so many travellers weaned on "Nepal on a Shoestring", "Nepal for a dollar a Day" and similar, that it is immensely hard to charge a fair rate for a product that invests enormously in the environment and local community! With so-called 5 star hotels in Kathmandu selling at rates reported as low as US$40 per night - the entire market gets skewed.
Thanks for that, Marcus. It is good for us to hear these tales from the 'other side'. It is true that we are still locked into the idea that the 'developing world' should be cheap for us, almost as a right. Getting a great bargain in the market-place is part of the package, and you are reminding us that there is more than just the market place. Perhaps the answer is to educate your visitors to know quite how much you are doing and how much it costs? I remember the Ladakh Ecological Development Centre (?) providing that sort of service for tourists who came to Leh, the capital, and it had a huge impact on local tourism, 'greening' it and enabling visitors to understand its impact.
Good luck!
I can tell you a place not to stay we have just stayed in The Slipway Hotel in Port Isaac
Here goes well first of all the room lacked any wow factor and something most people would not notice I guess. The linings of the curtains were hanging below the main curtain fabric where they had been washed and the outer fabric had shrunk. The kettle would only plug in on the floor and the TV was not visible unless you perched on the edge of the bed yet there was worse to come.
The food at dinner was good and the service was good on Friday night but it turned out we were the only couple not going to a wedding the next day run by the sister hotel to ours. Anyway it was busy downstairs when we went to bed but unfortunately the whole party gathered in the room below ours and had a party until 3.30am until my husband went down and shouted at them. So we eventually got to sleep and then breakfast was good and we went to a great farmers market and had a walk and a wander around Padstow then thought we would go back and have a little sleep before dinner. Anyway we got back and found that our room had not been touched no dirty cups moved no clean bathroom etc. Another complaint and after a couple of coffees we felt calmer. The service at dinner was really shoddy but the food did not suffer and then we were woken at 2.30am by a blazing row outside our room and then running and screaming and door slamming. So in the morning we decided we wanted a reduction for our dodgy stay and we got £110 off I suppose that was ok but it ruined our weekend and that can't be replaced by the reduction.
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