As a traveler, I’ve been privileged. Not due to family wealth or a secret benefactor, but the fortune of falling into a travel writing career that has included 10,000 hours, and then some, at hotels and resorts around the world. These stays — sometimes comped, sometimes not; sometimes incognito, sometimes not — are turned into reviews, guides, listings, features, profiles, round-ups for print and online publications. Topics run the gamut, too, from service, amenities and facilities to design, architecture and technology.
The privilege has also given me a front row seat to the hotel industry. In 20 years of travel writing, I’ve checked into and toured hundreds of hotels around the world, from Tahoe to Thailand, Dubai to Denmark, Nassau to New York. All served their own flavor of hospitality, and some, naturally, tasted better to my particular palate.
But like any job — privileged or not — quibbles harden over time into pet peeves, and hotel writers are not exempt. Over the years and miles, I’ve racked up my own shortlist of hotel writer pet peeves. They are drawn from the most common missed opportunities for hotels to lighten the load and elevate the travel, as well as answer a single question: Do I feel like a guest or a customer?
Here are eight of my top pet peeves that hotels might consider to revolve the world a little more around me — and you.
Open charge for water
What’s the first thing you do when a guest arrives at your home? You offer a drink of water. That’s because water is the fundamental element of life — and therefore hospitality. Hotels that openly commodify water break this foundation. Some put a single free bottle in the room, but too many make it for sale. If it’s in the minibar, the price can gouge even deeper. Of course, water is a real expense that hotels must cover, but it’s better to incorporate the cost into the room fee or “resort tax,” to at least give the appearance of free water and pure hospitality.
Tea inequality
As a tea lover, I’m constantly struck by the different treatment in hotels for coffee and camellia sinensis. While Nespresso machines and roasts are championed, all tea gets is a few crappy tea bags alongside, if that. Even worse is the gagging “toffee” that drips from the coffee-soaked, pod makers — as I’ve explained countless times to bemused desk clerks with each request for a separate kettle. Hotels that want to show authentic tea love might step it up with loose leaf tea, the separate kettle and proper teacups, instead of those doll-sized thimbles that often accompany the room’s coffee and tea station.
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In a digital world, charging a device is a daily duty. So, too, is using that device for business or pleasure. Why some hotels still keep those essential outlets out of sight or hard to reach remains beyond me. Often, the outlets are at floor level, behind end tables and entertainment centers, or squeezed between the sofa arm and the wall. And these may already be spoken for by the minibar, TV, Nespresso machine, clock radio and other electronics. Sometimes, the desk or work space is simply too far from an outlet for a power cable to reach. Thankfully, the fix is easy. Just two power strips — one on the desk and one on the nightstand.
No lap top for the laptop
Most guests check into a hotel with a laptop, tablet or phone. They also love to sleep with that device and cuddle in bed first thing the next morning — checking emails, counting likes, reading news and stalking exes. A few even get right to work without getting up. However, most hotels have yet to recognize this relationship and provide any kind of lap desk for guest comfort and convenience. As a result, I’ve MacGyvered any number of solutions from coffee table books, the turned-over Nespresso machine stand, room service trays, the ice bucket, waste bin, placemats atop folded towels and my carry-on bag.
Artsy hotel photos that show nothing
In an effort to sprinkle stardust on accommodations, many hotels — especially in the fancy, boutique category — employ rockstar photographers to snap sexy, artsy shots for the website, social media and marketing material. Unfortunately, the results often defeat the purpose, obscuring the hotel behind hyper close-ups, oblique angles, forced perspective, blurred focus and mood lighting. These surrealistic visions don’t straighten punctuation into exclamation points, but curl them into question marks. Rather than force the viewer through Fellini filters, just stand at one end of the room, point the camera and take a picture. It will show the guest much more.
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Un- or partially enclosed showers
I admit it. I lack the dainty dexterity to a direct a jet of shower water at just the right pressure and angle to keep it entirely inside an un- or partially enclosed shower. Instead, the spray covers the floor, walls and ceiling of the bathroom like a blood spatter on Dexter. This turns into a great lake if the shower head is hand-held only. Fancy hotels make it worse with a seabed of polished marble, making the post-shower floor as slippery as an ice rink. If you survive without fractures, the reward is 20 minutes of mopping up with every bath towel, hand rag, wash cloth and toilet roll in sight.
Little that’s local
Hotels are often the first point of contact with a culture, if not the primary. Therefore, they should make some effort to represent and help guests connect with it. So, I can never understand hotels that offers little to nothing about the local culture — art, music, cuisine, design, handicrafts, signature products, whatever. At times, it gets comical, such as a hotel in a wine region without any local wine, only Continental breakfast on an Aegean coastline, or Muzak in the Caribbean soundscape, stock hotel art in lieu of local, and so on. It’s like I tell my travel writing students at Gotham Writers Workshop: The destination needs to be the star or costar, or it ain’t travel writing. The same goes for hotels that merely take travelers from point A to point A.
Everything, everywhere, all at once
There’s an unfortunate syndrome at restaurants, where the waiter launches a full data dump before your butt’s even settled into faux fabric. The same goes for many hotels, who immediately run through a trove of detail at check-in, including check-out times, turn-down service, the breakfast location and times, spa and pool access, heating and cooling instructions, restaurant reservations and specials and local tours. I retain none of it, spending the spiel feeling my pockets for the key card I just had in my hand. Hotels should instead dispense info asynchronously in a single FAQ page in the room, or maybe in bite-sized portions — like turn-down service info next to the towels and breakfast times on the minibar.
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