London hotels look great from the outside, but when you venture indoors they are awful.

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It’s a shame. London is a beautiful city. Lots of great architecture. Plenty for travelers to see and do. Most of the other tourist infrastructure is sound. I’m thinking there is little motivation for hotel owners to pay for upgrades. People are going to come to London regardless and the rates remain high even with the mediocre performance.

Thinking in terms of change, I see two possibilities: new, cheaper competition focusing on better service and hip rooms or outside intervention (gov’t or an agency) that forces them to adhere to certain standards. I’d like to see the former.

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Agree . and its something most people in the industry admit to…maybe its something to with with being a world city (New York, Tokyo), never having to fight for business. With access to credit restricted with increasing numbers of tourists arriving because sterling is in the bin, I cant see an incentive for them to improve. .. Olympics or no Olympics.

SC

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The Olympics worry me. They were awarded to a city which is, at best, lukewarm about them. London is simply not designed for Olympics, we do not have the infrastructure and the talk of things such as private lanes for Olympians cars will cause an awful lot of resentament and scorn.

Many of us will have to go about our daily lives with this additonal burden. Hotels probably could not give a rancid roadkilled rodent, knowing that they will be full at any price they charge with any kind of service that they choose (or do not choose) to offer. Even at Heathrow, where Emirates paid pushing 10 mill to have their A380 replace the BA Concorde, there are signs that people just do not care – arrive in London, first thing you see is not British Airways standing roud (or British Midland) but Emirates, for heavens sake.

The only decent service appears to come from the high end hotels, where they have to perform due to their having an international clientelle; but at the lower end – why bother? Trading Standards do visit these places but “service” is not an element they consider. The only thing that could be done is for the various star rating people (AA etc) to come down like a ton of bricks now, in the hope that people will sort themselves out.

As I said, I am worried. We are in real danger of making absolute fools of ourselves in front of the whole world. Me? Frankly, I am going on holiday somewhere, anywhere away from the hell that London will be for 2 weeks or so – er…., and not tell anyone I am from London…. I suppose what I am saying is that we all really ought to get behind this thing, now, or we will be the laughing stock of the world. Especially after this financial fiasco, we have a stonk of a lot of reputation re-building to do.

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I didn’t know there was one in Romania too, that’s awesome.

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Time, I think, to roll out the old sayings. “You get what you pay for” and “you can’t judge a book by it’s cover”. It certainly applies to Hotels, and not just in London, but any big international city. Paris, Frankfurt, New York etc.

The problem with setting standards is what should they be. Of course there should be the basic clean room of a reasonable size (whats a reasonable size? The Bigger the room the less space there is for rooms and so the more each room costs) but outside of that, how do you measure those standards? Everybody’s standards and expectations are different. Even amongst the voluntary schemes we have now there are differences and what might make a three star rating on one may only achieve a Two star rating on another.

How often should they be assessed and who is going to pay? The more frequent the inspections the more the scheme will cost to administer, yet standards can change over a short period of time, especially as we enter a ‘downturn’ and hoteliers may need to cut costs. We don’t really want more traveler taxes do we? Charge the hotels? Either way it adds to the cost of that room night.

I think the best we can hope for in the short term is that people research better. The web enables people to get first hand experience from sites like Trip Advisor (use with caution) and Frommers.com’s forums. If people don’t patronize these hotels then they will have no choice but to improve or close.

Darren, Did your friends complain at the time?

I’m not defending the flea pit hotels of Britain, but some people (I’m not including your good friends mentioned above, Darren) will always find something to complain about. Take that hotelier i started with. ” Well what do you expect to see out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window? Sydney Opera House Perhaps? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the plains?”

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I think the standard of some hotels in London are amazing whilst some do let us down. The key for the Olympics will be on what state the economy is in. We could sit here and assume all will be back to normal globally by 2011 lets say, but if not, those coming for the Olympics will not be prepared to pay extorionate fees and it may be another opportunity for budget accommodation providers to fill their rooms out.

There are rumours of a number of budget hotels already planning to increase capacity in time for the games to ensure accommodation availability for those looking for cheap hotels; cheap will mean better value for money as opposed to cheap, dirty and damp – a stay at a premier London hotel for £150/night or 3 nights at a cheap hotel offering similar amenities for £150 will seem like a fairly sizable proposition for some. Ok you won’t be expecting a 4 or 5 star service at the cheaper hotel but with value being driven up by competition and social review websites there will be much better competition out there in time for the 2012 games.

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Darren – Check this out – absolutely shocking!! How can these places get away with it and carry on trading, some of the photos are particularly grim. So glad I check reviews before I go, although I would not have stayed, i would have walked out on arrival if I stayed somewhere like these:

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/dirtyhotels-p746

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