Rant: Modern hotel rooms

Modern hotel rooms

The Fairmont Hotel in Azerbaijan is a 500 500foot monument to Central Asian bling done out in oligarch-chic. It does, however, boast fantastic views over the Caspian Sea. So on a recent stay, the first thing I did was open the curtains of my huge window on the 12th floor.

Or rather, I tried. The curtains were operable only via an electronic control panel that, like the hotel itself, ignored the maxim that less is sometimes more. There were five options – none of which seemed to include the basic command of ‘Please, just open the bloody curtains.’ After half an hour in darkness, I had to call the concierge for help.

It isn’t just the curtains, where the simple act of drawing them by hand is no longer an option. Hotel-room lights used to be operated by buttons or cords next to the device in question. Now they’re often controlled from a single master switch, bearing labels such as ‘Lobby’, ‘Cupboard A’ and ‘Bathroom Mirror B’. Invariably, though, there is some wall-panel or floor light that can’t be switched off, angled like an interrogation lamp on your pillow.

Worse still are airconditioning controls, which come with a maelstrom of symbols. In desperation once, I googled ‘Hotel airconditioning symbols’, to discover a table showing some 70 different hieroglyphics used by different manufacturers. Who would have thought the world of air-conditioning required its very own Rosetta Stone?

The rational response, of course, might be a little patience. But patience is not something every hotel guest has much of. Not if you’ve just checked in at 3am and have to be up for a business meeting in three hours’ time.

It’s enough to make you raid the mini-bar. Assuming you can open it.