• Speaking Out,

The long-stay sector has its many challenges but consistency and quality accreditation remain a priority, says James Foice of ASAP

Among my many and varied many roles in tourism, I used to be a hotel inspector. There’s not much about the industry that I haven’t seen, so you’d think I’d be pretty savvy when it comes to my own travel, but I can be duped as easily as anyone else.

I’ve booked a penthouse and arrived to find a basement. I’ve been turned away on arrival because my room is double-booked, and I’ve been relocated across town. I’ve waited weeks for my refund on a ‘free cancellation’ to come through. And you try arguing with any of that. You book online, through one kind of aggregator or another, and when it all goes pear-shaped, the only person you have to shout at is front-of-house, who isn’t really the problem. After all, images are for ‘illustrative purposes only’…

The way we shop for most things is changing, especially since more than

60% of consumers worldwide are now in their twenties and thirties, and almost exclusively mobileled. But the online booking industry must be one of the few where complex and costly transactions happen without an ombudsman or a recognised complaints procedure.

So this is a clarion call to the wider hospitality industry. There’s every chance that if they feel duped, taken for granted or, worse, lied to, consumers might just act with their feet and simply walk away.

After all, it took shoppers returning plastic packaging waste to supermarkets and school kids with a conscience to start a revolution that continues today with barricades, and rebellion that has stopped cities and demanded attention on climate change. We can’t afford to end up like that.

But it seems to me that by being totally upfront and honest with the consumer about what you are offering, what you’re promising to deliver, and then following through on that, everyone wins. Back to the star ratings of my past. If you book a two-star motel, you can’t be disappointed if that’s what you get. If by some fluke you

find something akin to five-star service or four-star amenities, you might be delighted and become a brand advocate. But time and again we’re being promised one thing and getting another.

And it’s wrong.

In our own serviced apartment industry, we’re a trade body representing hundreds of members with literally millions of bed nights a year. We didn’t like the fact that however hard we worked as a relatively new and nimble sector, we found it hard to differentiate ourselves from other options available on the booking engines where we feature.

So we pioneered and refined an international accreditation system which ensures – at the absolute minimum – that our members offer exactly what they say they do.

Pictures are real, verified and constantly checked; service is professional and available 24/7; and our code of conduct, to which all members adhere, means the consumer will always be front and centre of every booking.

And frankly, we think that’s the very least that everyone across the hospitality industry should be doing – being honest about our offering and delivering on what we promise.

It’s time to stop disrespecting the consumer by dazzling him or her with science, with flashy websites, with the panic-inducing messages about what percentage of a property has already been booked, or that 15 other people have fingers hovering over the ‘book now’ button.

And it’s definitely time to stop allowing listings on sites which offer no safety equipment or policy of any sort, no fire escape, no carbon monoxide detector, and simply suggest at a late stage in the booking process that the guest might like to consider bringing his or her own fire alarm as the host hasn’t bothered with one. And yes, that can actually happen on Airbnb. And that’s the attitude the company takes right now towards guest safety.

People, we need to clean up our act now, before it’s too late! We can’t let the guest find another way to travel and leave us high and dry. This is too important. Let’s be honest to ourselves and our customers; trust in hospitality has to be a given.