As a consumer who travels on a budget I have often stayed in hotels around Britain that are dirty beyond words. It does not matter how much you have spent on a hotel room, the minimum you should expect is a clean room.
Update: The lovely Carmen Roberts from BBC Fast Track has given my campaign to clean up British hotel rooms a mention on her latest programme. You can watch the video here. I have attempted to make more people aware of the campaign without much success so far.
No excuses for dirty hotel rooms
There are no excuses for a filthy, unhygienic hotel room and over the years writing this blog I have received various complaints from consumers where faeces were found round the edge of the toilet seat to the mattress in a room was so badly soiled that mold had begun to grow.
Lack of attention to detail
Sometimes it is a lack of attention to detail, in my recent stay in London the hotel room was clean, but the lampshade next to the bed was disgusting, I dread to think what the stains were. Issues like this are easily fixed, how much does it cost to replace a lampshade?
Time for Britain to clean up its act
I think it is time that Britain cleaned up its act, especially with millions of people visiting the country during the London Olympics in 2012. What image are we giving these visitors when so many of our hotels are badly managed and are in need of a serious clean up.
Campaign to clean up British hotels
It is for these reasons that I am launching a campaign to clean up British hotels. Yes, this is a huge challenge and, no, this is not PR hype, I truly believe that consumers should no longer have to put up with filthy hotel rooms and it is time that hotel owners stood up and cleaned up their act.
The aim of the campaign is to help clean up Britain’s dirtiest hotels and highlight hygiene issues to hotels owners. I am asking consumers to upload their dirty hotel room photos to highlight some of the issues that consumer’s experience.
Photos needed of dirty British hotel rooms
I need to collate as many photos as possible so please share this post with family and friends and ask them to upload their photos. Please feel free to write about my campaign and I will mention you on this blog post as a supporter.
Upload your dirty hotel room photos
Get involved and together let’s clean up British hotel rooms.
Related posts
- Misleading hotel room photos rant
- My London budget hotel experience
- Budget hotels spoil dirty weekend breaks
- Five things I hate about hotels
- Britain holiday ideas for British tourism week
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Jack Norell | 21 July, 2011 at 2:54 pm
Thanks Darren,
this does need to be improved for the UK travel industry to remain competitive at all. We’re already far too expensive overall, and having to deal with filthy rooms, well, I know some people who aren’t ever coming back because of it.
Keep it up!
Darren Cronian | 21 July, 2011 at 7:14 pm
Thanks Jack! Glad you agree. Considering I only published this post this afternoon, already receiving some media attention.
Jack Norell | 21 July, 2011 at 7:20 pm
Wow, that’s impressive. You’ve spent a huge effort to get recognised and it’s fantastic it’s paying off so well.
Steve Jackson | 21 July, 2011 at 8:43 pm
I back this campaign 1001%. To add: it isn’t just budget hotels – i have stayed in luxury ones that have poor hygiene.
Judith Abraham | 21 July, 2011 at 10:09 pm
I know there won’t be a photo of TheLuxPod, as I am obsessive about cleanliness and the apartments are steam cleaned after each guest departs. I wish I could say that about other places in Kensington and South Kensington areas, as I often go and check out hotels to recommend to guests who can’t get a booking with me. It is very difficult to find consistently high standards.
Dave | 22 July, 2011 at 7:58 am
I could not agree more. Why can’t we have simple but clean hotel rooms, they seem to be able to do this very well on the continent but it seems rare here.
Good luck with the campaign.
Gary | 22 July, 2011 at 2:00 pm
Totally agree.
London accom. is terrible, costs the earth and you’re expected to be grateful as though they’re doing YOU a favour!
Amy | 22 July, 2011 at 2:07 pm
Don’t know if this is limited to UK hotels … I’d branch out further!!!
Darren Cronian | 22 July, 2011 at 2:57 pm
True Amy, but, since the blog is aimed more towards UK travellers, it seems best to sort the problem on my own doorstep first. I cannot take on the world 
Darren Cronian | 22 July, 2011 at 2:58 pm
Thanks for the comment Steve. It’ll be interesting to see which hotels I receive photos of. If they’re all budget, or a mix.
Judith Abraham | 22 July, 2011 at 5:57 pm
I’ve shown that accommodation can be on a budget and exceptional, even in one of the most expensive areas of London. I don’t see why the industry can’t get its act together. I have even been approached to sell my Pod concept internationally and that is a plus for the UK, given the fact we pride ourselves on a services culture.
Graham | 22 July, 2011 at 7:24 pm
I have seen the photo of the lampshade on your Facebook page and it is disgusting that a hotel can have an item like that on display in a hotel room. As a hotel owner I would be ashamed.
Carol | 22 July, 2011 at 8:33 pm
London seems to be one of the worst cities in the UK for dirty hotels. Why? Do hotel owners not care what their rooms appear like to customers. At a time when people are using social media to share photos with friends and family you would have thought that they would make sure that the hotel is clean.
Peter | 24 July, 2011 at 7:16 pm
Wow! Way to go. This should happen everywhere. I frankly think anyone running a dirty filthy hotel regardless of price must close and rethink or the hotel governing body must wake up.
Rr | 26 July, 2011 at 1:32 am
Yuck, hearing about some of those hotel rooms made me want to puke. Great idea!!
Nick | 29 July, 2011 at 12:09 pm
Darren… Just wondering what the hotel siad when you told them about that lampshade?
Darren Cronian | 29 July, 2011 at 6:54 pm
Hi Nick,
I took the lampshade down and the receptionist was quite embarrassed. They apologised and said that they would replace it.
They didn’t replace it in the end. I’ve emailed them and said that other than the horrible dirty lampshade, for a budget room it was fine.
Ryan | 30 July, 2011 at 12:54 am
I wholeheartedly back your new campaign to clean up hotel rooms, I experienced dog crap on a carpet in a pretty famous hotel in the centre of Manchester once. The place was disgusting.
Trestian | 31 July, 2011 at 10:21 pm
This reminds me of my trip to London 2 yrs ago. Tight budget, ended up in one of the cheapest places I could find.
I could understand the old furniture, and also the barely working TV, but not the fact that the carpets seemed to have been last vacuum cleaned right after WW2…
Vino Rosso | 9 August, 2011 at 3:44 pm
Right, Carol. Grubs everywhere. But one vital item in a hotel, especially the bathroom, is that you can at least view your face in the mirror! Seldom the case in UK hotels. Only ceiling lighting, or a 20 watt bulb beside the mirror. Then there’s the fitting of the miniscule washbasin, so close to a shelf or tap that bending over the basin means getting jabbed in the cranium. And then that especial UK uhygienic carpet on the floor of a bathroom – yes, really! And you have to walk on this filth with barefeet! My Gawd!
Vino Rosso | 9 August, 2011 at 3:50 pm
Stayed in a moderate, large hotel in Ayr, Scotland, a few years back. Leaning on to the washbasin while I shaved the whole fitting crashed off the wall. Carpets were full of bugs, didnt need a microscope to study them. Only one hapless lass at the reception, took ages to get your room key. Heard a dozey elderly Norwegian ask the receptionist to dial a room number – she was ‘too busy’. He dialled self and got a taxi.
Judith Abraham | 9 August, 2011 at 9:57 pm
I totally agree with you Vino. Why can’t designers consider items like magnification mirrors fitted in flush to a large mirror, plus a mirror that is heated which allows you to shave/put make up on with out it fogging up. Plus the light wattage issue in hotel rooms – a huge bug bear for me. It is all very elementary, design and function. And what is the extra expense of such a pleasure? Next to nothing for the differential.
Laura | 12 August, 2011 at 1:33 am
Great post. I’ve had a few similar experiences in GB. Good luck with the campaign!
Vino Rosso | 14 August, 2011 at 2:05 pm
Darren is sort of right about the blog concentrating on UK places, not travellers. Otherwise, gloomy hotels are often the case in Spanish places too. (Are they thinking about shade from the sun?) Bathrooms often have one weak light above the mirror; depending on the size and shape of one’s proboscis its hazardous for males to shave with a blade, as the shadow blocks out upper lip and chin. Stayed in a decent Cadiz hotel two years back yet corridors were like a cave, lights on flicking only when you moved deep into the interior. And I have eaten breakfast at hotel in Gothenburg where it was so dark you couldnt discern milk from milk or sour cream. At breakfast next day I took a torch!
Bill Johnson | 14 August, 2011 at 6:17 pm
How foreign tourists afford to take a holiday in London in the first place is beyond understanding. Then when they are here they get ripped off with ridiculous charges and the hotel rooms are likely to be sub standard or worse. Amazing anyone ever returns.
Martin M-C | 19 August, 2011 at 5:58 pm
As the owner of 2 B&B’s I fully support this inititative. But you really need to actiually ‘name and shame’ to be effective. I don’t necessarily agree that our hotels don’t measure-up against international competition; however as you say concentrate on the UK first. My personal experience is that London hotels are generally poor. My wife recently stayed at the Shalimar Hotel in Hounslow and, whilst the duvet was clean, the sheets had has not been changed and had pubic hairs across them.
Oh, and the TV remote didn’t work either. Clean bedding was provided after my wife complained, (but she remade the bed herself).
The other area which frustrates me is Customer Service; why on earth employ someone who clearly can’t display a modicum of freindliness and a helpful attitude towards customers?
Judith Abraham | 19 August, 2011 at 10:16 pm
Totally agree. Great opportunity to create training manuals for these establishments 
Look at the Savoy, they have 26 steps in pouring a cup of tea. If one is to create perfection, then this is the level one has to benchmark against. This is what I have introduced in Latvia, where well meaning assistants find it difficult to comprehend the level of service I want maintained. It is maintaining incremental positive changes constantly whilst getting them engaged in the same mantra. With check lists and procedures in place they don’t have an excuse to say “Sorry, I forgot”. In the services industry often there is no second chance, so it has to be right the first time.
AJ | 21 August, 2011 at 4:49 pm
Make you wonder what they are paying the cleaning and house keeping staff for doesn’t it? Great website, oh and congratulations on the mention online check-in, great stuff.
AJ
Haraldur | 23 August, 2011 at 11:09 am
I have been to London a few times and i have never experienced any unhygienic hotel rooms or toilets. It has maybe changed since i was there last about three years ago?
Tim L. | 28 August, 2011 at 4:51 pm
Darren,
I’m a contributor to the Uptake Lodging Blog and I put up a story about this today. Hope it gets you some more photos!
http://lodging.uptake.com/blog/a-campaign-to-clean-up-britains-dirty-lodging.html
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