Hotels and their service

Something that I have started to notice and maybe this is the hotel chain that I have been staying at is there are times when customer service and just service in general seems to be going downhill while the price of staying at the hotel is going up. Maybe we are just getting the hotel when they are having a bad weekend but that seems to be happening more and more.

• Breakfast area – not keeping items stocked so that the guests can grab their food and coffee and be on their way. This time at the hotel the coffee was running very low when we got ours and then I think it ran out not long after but it took a while for it to be restocked. The sausages were low (only 2 left when we got our food), so none left after we got food and the plate area was empty in one section for empty. It took quite a while to get any of these items restocked and some people did without sausages and probably coffee as they were in a hurry.
• Cleaning staff – they were very impatient with the elevator. One of the elevators was out of order so it meant only one was working. One of the cleaning stuff was constantly pressing the button to call the elevator as if that would make it come faster. This is just after 8am and lots of people would be leaving at that time. When the elevator finally arrived it was full of guests leaving with their luggage so that is why it took a while. One of the cleaning staff walked by us and I thought she was going to try and get on the elevator before us but she waited otherwise she would have heard me.
• Cleanliness of the room – when putting our shoes in one of the closets discovered a part of a cracker on the floor. Have no idea how long it has been there but it shows that the floors of the closets are not cleaned on a regular basis. We didn't have crackers so it was there before we arrived.
• 
  Recognition of being a member of the chain – this is something that has happened a few times. Yes, we are recognized as a returning guest to the hotel but not as a gold member of the hotel chain. When you get the survey that is one of the questions that you are asked and again this time I will be stating not recognized as a gold member. Sure, when I get into the room it welcomes me by name and as a gold member.
• Caution pylon - this pylon was in the one elevator that was working the entire time we were in the hotel. The floor wasn't wet as it wasn't raining out and we didn't see anyone washing the floor at any time we were around the elevator.

These are some of the issues that we saw on our latest stay and something that chains need to understand that can impact of a guest continues to start with a specific chain of hotels or is it time for them to try a different chain and see if that chain has better service.

Something that we are going to be doing is trying a different hotel chain to see what they are like. Being able to have the flexibility to try and different chains and not just stay with one does help quite a bit. We will see how that stay goes as we have already booked a trip and I will make sure that I write up about that experience.

Why should I move?

Recently I was seeing that there was an event that was asking attendees if they would be willing to move from the hotel from where the event was being held to another hotel that was a little bit of a distance from the location. Yes, I understand that the event hotel was going to make sure that you were transported between the two locations but that doesn’t matter.

Something that we need to understand that there was a contract (separate to the specific event) from January through March for a group of rooms that were to be vacated prior to the event that was to happen at the end of April and early May. Well, what happened is the long-term contract was extended without looking at what other contracts were signed and suddenly we had a major issue. So, what happened was the hotel where the event was contracted, they were able to find another hotel within the same area that was able to find accommodations, but they could accommodate people that were willing to have a king bed so that really did impact a lot of people. Yes the original hotel was willing to make sure that they could transport the individuals back and from the new hotel but there are still the challenges.

Something that a lot of organizers don’t think about is how many individuals will be going up to their room for just those few minutes to escape the sounds of the event space or what happens if I forget something in my room and need to do a quick run up to the room to get that specific thing that I need to continue to move a specific project forward. I don’t want to have to give out how to get to my new hotel to just spend a few minutes in my room and then turn around and get back to the event hall.

For a lot of attendees at an event, we have to understand that moving from one hotel to another might seem easy to some but can be a challenge to others. How do I move between the two hotels because do I always want to spend the time and energy going between the two hotels. Sure, the event hosting was willing to pay for the transportation, but they didn’t think about the time and energy that was going to happen for the different attendees.

I understand that there might have been an issue between an existing long-term contract and a signed contract that was done a year ago, maybe what should have happened is the people that there at the original hotel should have been the ones moved to accommodate a contract that was signed a year ago.

There seems to be a lot of there long-term contracts that are around in the hotels, but we also have to think about the contracts there were signed a year ago and how it looks for individuals that want to stay at a given hotel. Why are there so many less rooms available and maybe that is what we need to look at.

Edit: there is an update and it ended up that the hotel was able to resolve the issue and the attendees of the event didn't have to move to a different location. I am happy to hear this because it shows that hotels need to understand that a contract that was signed should be respected.