TRAVEL NEWS
We’re fed up with robots, paying for Wi-Fi, ‘experiences’ and retro furniture, says Anna Hart
Hotels, listen up. We’re tired of you charging us for Wi-Fi – so here is a list of a few aspects you need to change up in 2019.
Working in such a relentlessly neo-philiac field as travel, I’m doomed to witness more than my fair share of terrible trends, peculiar “innovations” and ridiculous pretensions in hotels. So, as 2019 gets under way and travellers start desperately plotting out trips for the year ahead, I have some words of advice for the hotel trade.
More humans, please
Self-scan tills are a misery in supermarkets, and self-check-in counters in airports are a nightmare without a sizeable army of (human) digital diplomats easing negotiations between stressed travellers and frozen screens. So please don’t adopt as a template the Henn na (which means “strange”) Hotel in Ginza, Tokyo – staffed by an army of 250 robots and just seven humans. Living, well-trained and wellpaid human staff might be a rare luxury, but the human touch is something travellers will pay for.
Don’t even think about charging us for Wi-Fi
It’s a perversion of the travel trade that a budget backpacker’s hostel in Bangkok will cheerfully offer guests free and fast Wi-Fi, but a high end, five-star resort hotel in Napa will greet guests’ iPhones with a list of payment options. Charging for Wi-Fi is insulting. 2018 was the year we all woke up to the fact that we’re drowning in single-use plastic, and now a row of six titchy bottles of shower gel looks obscene in a hotel bathroom. Big, refillable bottles of ethical, good-quality and locally made toiletries are the way forward.
Just tell us what things cost
Spa menus that neglect to include the price of massages, because apparently numbers are too grubby to include amid the wafty lingo of well-being, and require a price list of their own. Minibars where we can’t work out if that box of chocolates on the bedside table is a welcome gift or a Dh200 package of regret. Hotel websites that demand we jump through a series of on-screen hoops and practically book a room before they’ll tell us the rate. Just tell us what something costs, so we can decide if we want it.
Put yoga mats in bedrooms
It’s 2019. We’re much more likely to use a yoga mat than an ironing board. I haven’t used an ironing board this century. One of the most pleasing hotel trends I’ve noticed in the past year is that of the free minibar. Minibars are notorious rip-offs, which makes the gesture of a soft drink seem like Gatsby-grade decadence.
Stop calling everything an ‘experience’
As a travel writer, I’m complicit in mediaspeak like “experiential travel” making its way into the literature littered around hotel rooms. But please, hotels, it’s not a “spa experience”, it’s a spa. It’s not a “dining experience”, it’s dinner. Travellers have had enough “experience” experiences to last a lifetime.
Give us toothpaste too
It’s the one thing everybody needs. We all have teeth. Please notice this.
Keep lighting simple
Hey, hotels! No guest has ever looked around a hotel room and thought “Hmm, I wish there were more light switches in the bathroom”. Keep it simple.
Dare to be different
“Scandi”. “Minimalist”. “Industrial-chic”. We’re all getting bored with reclaimed Fifties modernist sideboards, Edison bulbs, exposed brickwork, slogan-emblazoned blackboards and shouty neons. They are now the aesthetic equivalent of elevator muzak.
Come on, surprise us.