Britain isn’t known for the best service, and during this credit crunch, that could mean the end of a vast range of UK budget hotels and other travel companies. And thousands of service industry jobs. At least that’s what Visit Britain’s chairman Christopher Rodrigues fears as he sees tourists abandoning England in droves because of poor service standards.
Mr Rodrigues said: “We’ve had a period in which people could get away with not being of the highest quality.
"We’re now in an environment where you have to do quality. Poor value for money and poor service costs jobs and will cost more jobs in a recession.”
“Threadbare towels, a previously owned bar of soap and a grumpy person who says ’we don’t do breakfast before 8am and we don’t do it after 8.12am’ - you don’t get a lot of happy customers.”
More about this and video over at the BBC.
This rhymes with a recent discussion over at Travel-Rants about how budget hotels in England have terribly low standards. I’ve stayed in some cheap hotels here in England, and I have to say that standards leave a lot to be desired. But then again, so do budget hotels in Paris, where anything decent costs at least $125 per night.
What’s your thought? Are we going to lose huge numbers of tourism jobs during this recession because service levels are so poor?
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What a gem of a hostel
Sounds like you found a brilliant hostel in Prague. Thanks for spreading the word.
Yeah, I've stayed in a couple of London hostels... Not the best experience, in fact, on par with the fleabag hostels in Istanbul. Except those cost me $6 per night including breakfast, not £18.
Jack on 19 January, 2009