Travel bliss

HOW MUCH do you pay for your hotel rooms when you travel on business? R1 500 or more? And what do you get for that?

A business trip took me to Cape Town a few days ago. The first night, spent at a friend’s home, was by far the highlight of my trip (as far as accommodation was concerned, that is). And the thing is, it shouldn’t have been. I then moved on to a beachfront hotel with a fantastic view of the mountain – pleasant daykor and friendly staff and all as it should be when I arrived.

But I’d not been in my room for ten minutes when I realised that something was bothering me. It stank of smoke – tobacco smoke. My colleague’s room also smelt smoky, but not as badly as mine. We opened doors and windows and hoped it would clear.

It didn’t. Whenever I went out to meet with someone, I couldn’t leave the windows and doors open, because there were no burglar bars and they opened onto a public space. (The next day, while I was working with the door open, a man talking on the cellphone walked straight in. He apologised in Chinglish and backed out immediately.)

By the time I got back, the room smelt like an English pub (or rather, as an English pub smelt a few years ago, of course). I ordered a drink from room service and asked the guy who delivered it to do something about the stench. He was shocked and apologetic and promised to tell management immediately.

It took three days of requests before somebody did something. By then the smell had calmed somewhat, and when a nice lady came to the door with a sickly yer-great-granny’s lavender air freshener, I refused. Better the faint residue of tobacco than that. (And yes, I know I should have asked for a new room, but you know what it’s like when you’re working and there’s no time to do much else except fling yourself down at 11 to sleep?)

On top of the lousy sachet coffee and that fake milk stuff, the shower which flooded every time I opened it above a wussie trickle – I found myself wading through the waters like the survivor of a massive winter storm, and had to chuck towels down to soak it all up – this made me feel a little hard done by. If I’d been paying for the room instead of a client, I would have stormed down to reception and thrown a wobblie.

Really, after doing travel journalism for the last decade and a half and more, and travelling regularly on business, I think sometimes our hospitality industry lets themselves down on such little and fixable things.

Just putting a plunger and sachets of ground coffee in the rooms would make a profound difference. If you complain that that will make the rooms too expensive and people will steal the plungers, well, ask me for my preference. If I ask for plunger coffee in the room, take a deposit off me at the outset.

(Think people won’t steal the plungers? Think again! A manager at one of our best lodges in Mpumalanga, a wonderful place now sadly closing down, once told me that an Italian couple – who after all could afford those rates – went through the room like a flock of vultures: they took all the throws and the towels and the occasional cushions, plush with velvet and sateen and all; the staff figured out that they’d even emptied the sherry out of the crystal decanter into an empty water bottle and taken the amber liquid with them. “What on earth did you do?” I asked. “Oh, well, we knew their itinerary, so we just phoned them at the next stop and said, we think you may have accidentally packed some of our stuff, could we arrange to collect it? We had to write off the sherry, though.” One hopes that the Italians were embarrassed into ceasing and desisting, although when guests have balls that big, one doubts that.)

Here’s another little touch that would help a lot – something some hotels still do, while others (and it seems more and more) omit: either explain the electronic systems in the room or leave a clear manual somewhere prominent.

I’ve walked into rooms boasting a battery of six remote controls late at night and spent ten crossed-eyed and increasingly angry minutes trying to figure out how to turn off the underfloor heating and the lights.

One memorable night in a super-luxury place (since closed down), I woke up cold and tried to switch the heat on. I was standing at the coffee table, my back to the plate glass windows, swearing at a remote that didn’t seem to do anything at all, stabbing at a couple of unmarked arrows repeatedly, when I realised that this remote actually controlled the curtains. Behind my naked back, they’d been patiently opening and closing at my command, rather like a sort of Venus de Morse code flashing at a darkened world…

It is the little touches which turn a business or tourism trip from something ordinary into something memorable. Go to your own hotel incognito and see it through the eyes of an ordinary person, and you will soon understand how to enhance the experience.