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The Nation's Pulse
Hotels and Hassles
There’s a reason why there’s no place like home.
Few things can make you appreciate home like staying in a hotel. This includes not only low-budget, bare bones hotels but also sweepingly large and ornate luxury hotels. What many hotels seem to have in common are needless hassles.
Since most people who stay in hotels do so while traveling, and stay only a few days in a given hotel, you might think that those who run hotels would want to make it easy for someone who arrives a little tired (or a lot tired) from traveling to use the various devices they find in their hotel room. But you would be wrong. That thought never seems to have crossed their minds.
Recently, at a well-known luxury hotel in Los Angeles, I found that something as simple as turning on a television set can require a phone call to the front desk, and then waiting for the arrival of a technician. Then it took another phone call to get a list of which of the dozens of channels were for which networks.
Why the turning on of a television set should be anything other than obvious to a newly arrived hotel guest is apparently a question that never occurred to the people who ran this hotel. Nor did it apparently ever occur to them that someone just arriving from a journey might want to be able to relax, instead of having to cope with complications that the hotel could easily have avoided.
The next morning, in the shower, I found myself confronted with a dazzling array of knobs and levers, none of which provided any clue as to what they did. The lever rotated and four of the surrounding knobs both rotated and tilted forward and backward.
Apparently it was not considered sporting to come right out and tell you how to get hot water or cold water. That was something you could find out for yourself by being either scalded or chilled.
Being fancy and opaque seemed to be the guiding principle.
Getting on the Internet required another phone call to the front desk. In fact, it required two phone calls, because I was first referred to the wrong technical support group.
It is easier to get on the Internet at almost any institution other than a hotel. And, at this particular hotel, you had to go through the whole procedure every day, instead of just signing up for Internet access for your entire stay when you checked in or logged on.
Being a luxury hotel, this one provided bathrobes. But I had my own bathrobe. At least I had it until the maids took it away when cleaning the room while I was out. Another phone call to the front desk.
Since my bathrobe was a white, terry-cloth robe and the hotel’s robes were a light tan and made of a different material, I thought there was no danger that one would be mistaken for the other. But I was wrong.
Just how wrong I discovered when, after a long delay, late at night when I wanted to get to sleep, a man appeared with a large bag containing two bathrobes. Apparently their search had also turned up another guest’s bathrobe that the maids had taken. It looked even less like the hotel’s bathrobe than mine did.
Something as simple as turning on a light can be a puzzle at some hotels. Again, the fatal allure of the fancy seems to be the problem with people who choose things to put in hotel rooms. Moreover, it is not uncommon for different lamps in the same hotel room to have different fancy ways of being turned on.
Years ago, at a hotel where I stayed for a week, it was only on the last day that I finally figured out, or stumbled on, the way to turn one of the floor lamps off and on.
Since I was very busy on that trip, I didn’t feel like adding this to the list of things to phone the front desk about, especially late at night, when I was more interested in getting to sleep than in waiting for some technician to show up and unravel the mystery.
About the Author
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His website is www.tsowell.com. To find out more about Thomas Sowell and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (18) | Leave a comment
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Darin| 11.20.12 @ 7:12AM
Any more, I hate to travel. Not only hotels, but airports, restaurants, and other places treat me like the enemy. They don't seem to WANT my business. So I don't give it to them.
Bob K| 11.20.12 @ 10:52AM
And if you have to fly there it just adds to the aggravation!
Pecos Pete| 11.20.12 @ 7:19AM
It will get worse. Most hotel workers, like restaurant workers, will be limited to 28 hours a week in order to avoid the pain of ObamaCare. Welcome to the Soviet States of America.
Suzyqpie| 11.20.12 @ 7:20AM
I won't mention any names but a room in a pyramid shaped joint in LV is an absolute Internet obstacle course. Another amenity of the same joint is standing in line at Starbucks to get coffee. My fav Dr Sowell quote, "How does allowing politicians to take more money from Americas most success to squander in ways that enhance their reelection prospects make anything more "fair" for others?"
c. j. acworth| 11.20.12 @ 7:48AM
Because of my low-brow taste and budget I've never stayed in a "luxury" hotel. Thus, I've never had to deal with the hassles Dr. Sowell lists here. I suggest he try a cheaper place next time.
Bob K| 11.20.12 @ 10:55AM
Red Roof Inns are good. But only in small towns and in well lighted areas. Other places you should have a license to carry.
John Mike | 2.22.13 @ 4:44PM
If someone don't wanna stay in a luxury hotel because of any reason.. no problem. He may stay at a hotel where rates are affordable. Same room in a hotel can be available at different prices depending upon how much facilities you want.
JimH| 11.20.12 @ 7:52AM
Dr. Sowell, I've admired your work for years and bought many of your books. Please don't turn your column into a Ben Stein hotel kvetch.
mike 3/505| 11.20.12 @ 8:44AM
Dr Sowell,
Nice change of pace Sir. I needed a good chuckle this morning.
Regards,
Mike
Von Mises Jr| 11.20.12 @ 9:01AM
Once Dear Leader implements Agenda21 "One World Government" work farms, one will use a common bathroom in your "stack and pack" apartment complex where you won't find hot water. Problem solved.
After Obama's Executive Order to kill the internet after the next crisis, you will have one channel on your TV and no internet. Keep your bathrobe close or "Big Brother" Barry will be gazing at your bare butt.
But no worries, you get an EBT card just like Perp to get veggie burgers fortified with pink slime at the cafeteria.
C. Vernon Crisler | 11.20.12 @ 9:26AM
I've experienced many of these hassles, but because I usually stay at a hotel for two week trips, I usually iron them out within the first 2 days. However, I did stay at one hotel that washed their bedsheets using chlorox or something that smelled like it. One should normally wash clothes using regular soap a couple of times after a chlorox wash in order to get the smell out. Not this hotel. After spending two days there, I came away with a serious alergic reaction.
Oh well, you get what you pay for I guess. There's a show out there called Hotel Impossible which I think should be required watching for all hotel owners.
Petronius| 11.20.12 @ 11:40AM
Dear Dr. Sowell
The hotel management and concierge are sending a simple message which practical people do not understand. You and me are Not welcome. Such establishments are only for those who have all these complicated top tier luxury devices at home. If you are unfamiliar with the gadgets, You're not one of THEM, and therefor do Not belong there. They only want the Silicon Valley swanks who invent that stuff, so that when a Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, and the like checks in, he knows it's a place where "others" than his kind have not been.
JD| 11.20.12 @ 12:20PM
Why did they put Thomas Sowell's picture on Ben Stein's article?
Quartermaster| 11.20.12 @ 12:46PM
LOL!
Dr. Sowell, you, like me, are getting old. :^)
besttalker| 11.20.12 @ 1:13PM
I, too, travel for business. I can relate completely to Sowell's article on the inconveniences of hotel stays. I only wish he had named the offending hotels. As the article mentions, TVs are never simple to work. Especially the LGs, which hotels offer almost exclusively. Hardly ever is a simple type-written list of stations provided. Light bulbs are constantly out. As Mr. Sowell also mentions, one needs a degree in computer science to successfully connect to the Internet. I find hairs on towels, on the floors and in the showers. If there is a crumb on the carpet you can bet it doesn't get vacuumed.
I have learned to ask if there are rooms that are more recently renovated. I ask if there is construction outside and request a room away from it.
Hotels have had to call police to evict noisy pot-smoking partiers, even in 5-star hotels.
Then, after much hassle and not getting what I want the first time I request and get bonus points on my hotel rewards accounts.
Sturmudgeon| 11.22.12 @ 11:23PM
Mr. Sowell
You were in CA., remember!
Al_B| 11.23.12 @ 7:20PM
Thomas Sowell does Andy Rooney. Another first.
John Mike | 2.22.13 @ 4:34PM
Hotel business is successful in all over the world specially in tourist destinations. Every one want to book a good room in hotel at low price. Websites offer hotel booking online.
http://www.eagleaim.com/bookin.....world.html