"It was a phantom of delight
When first it gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament"
I like to think that if the poet William Wordsworth had been a meeting planner and less preoccupied with daffodils, skylarks and Westminster Bridge he probably would have written that charming verse about hotel bathrooms.
After many years in this industry and many hours admiring bathrooms on every continent, I have come to the conclusion that the perfect hotel bathroom is a phantom concept. These lovely apparitions of gleaming porcelain and marble, into which I am too often squeezed with 15 other site inspectors, are but a moment’s ornament.
The reality is starkly different. (No, I don’t expect reality on a site inspection, but you know what I mean.) Hotel bathrooms have been designed by people who have never spent a night in a hotel or, possibly, by an architecturally trained octopus. They shine and entice but are frequently about as practical as an igloo in the desert.
Hotels furnish their bathrooms with every gadget and gizmo, fixture and fitting of any use to anyone (and several for which there is no known use at all). But they are usually in the wrong place.
Doors open in disconcerting directions, all available shelf space is taken up by helpful notices and the display of complimentary potions and lotions, oils and unguents. (I counted 21 items in a Boca Raton, Fla., bathroom last year.)
The magnifying mirror is frequently located marginally beyond arm’s length from the basin and the shaver point. It is also cleverly angled to keep your face always in shadow.
Showers can be particularly user unfriendly. When is there going to be a standard international system of controls so that plumbing illiterates like me don’t have to devote 20 minutes to pushing, pulling, turning, twisting, testing, swearing and in all probability taking a shower before taking a shower? And that first douche of water is still freezing cold.
Hotels either provide more bath taps than are necessary or too few.
Having stepped into the bath, turned on the shower and then gotten out again to go and find the soap (which, of course, is back at the basin), the shower curtain has lost its meaning. And please would someone invent non-slip soap and not wrap it in tear resistant paper?
As an aside, I recently stayed in a four-star hotel in Italy where the shower curtain was made of toweling—about as practical as a woollen toothbrush.
Turning to the gleaming porcelain fixtures, why should reaching for the daintily pointed toilet paper involve a level-four yoga position and knocking the handset off the telephone?
In terms of customer pampering, hotels have got one thing absolutely right: I approve of bathroom lighting that gives you a flattering hint of a tan. Less clever are the mirrors, which suddenly introduce you to parts of your body that you can’t normally see.
For an industry that spends billions wrapping us up in the cozy bathrobe of comfort, hotels are missing one last trick. Their bathroom scales are accurate.
If ever there was a case for a little mechanical white lie, this is it. When I’m on holiday or a business trip, it is inevitable that I shall put on weight; I just don’t want to be reminded. All hotel scales should read three pounds under actual. Now that’s what I call real hospitality.
TONY CAREY, CMP, CMM, is an award-winning writer and a past member of the MPI International Board of Directors. He can be reached at a tonycarey@psilink.co.je.
