Hotels need to take a good look at themselves and their competition

Being a fairly regular traveller for both work and pleasure, I find myself staying in a variety of hotels. Right now, I'm staying in a 4* hotel near Messe Frankfurt while I work at IMEX Frankfurt 2012 (www.imex-frankfurt.com).

I'm proud to say that I've a long association with IMEX and the fantastic team that run the show and I've been at every IMEX show since the first one in 2003 so I've stayed at this hotel a number of times over the years.

This hotel has barely changed at all over the years. The only change I’ve noticed at all is that there is now a kettle in the room – impressive progress for 10 years! Don’t get me wrong, this is a very nice hotel with good décor, comfortable beds, nice furniture and a decent bathroom.

There are only really three problems with the hotel for me. The first one is fairly simple and that is that there isn’t an iron in the room. Nor can you have an iron in the room – the only thing you can do is to go to the “Pressing room” on the 2nd floor.

That doesn’t sound too bad but if you’re not in a room on the 2nd floor, this means you have to go down to reception carrying the clothes you need to iron where you can hopefully find a member of staff who will activate the lift for you (there is a clever key card security system on the lifts so that you can’t go to another floor except your own).

Given that the hotel now has reached the dizzy heights of having a kettle in the rooms, it doesn’t seem a big stretch to have an iron and ironing board in the room too. This hotel is primarily a hotel for business travellers so I can’t see this being a problem unique to me!

The next problem is more annoying and is unfortunately common in chain hotels. The guest rooms are advertised as having air-conditioning. The truth is – the rooms are air-conditioned some of the year when the hotel’s management deems that it is warm enough to justify the air-conditioning being switched on.

Despite this, every room has a thermostatic control with different fan settings that optimistically promise a wide variety of temperatures. Alas, all you can have in my room is “hot” or “off”.

There are a growing number of Premier Inn hotels in the UK that have air-conditioning in the room and I’ve yet to find one where I can’t change the temperature to be whatever I want at any time of the year. It’s worth remembering that we’re talking about a budget hotel chain yet they have grasped the fact that people are different and some like it warmer and others like it cooler. It’s no wonder they are the biggest UK hotel chain and my first port of call if I ever need a hotel in the UK.

Yet in “business class” hotels all over the World, business travellers will be well used to hearing that the air-conditioning isn’t switched on until June (or whenever). Even worse, there seems to be almost fanatical adhesion to these rules. I’ve also stayed in hotels where there has been abnormally warm weather earlier in the year but the hotel management still won’t turn the air-conditioning on.

The final problem is again, there is a growing number of hotels that offer free or cheap wifi. Given that I carry 3 devices with me that can consume wifi, free wifi around the hotel would be really useful. Instead, they charge €15 per 24 hour period for wifi – that seems expensive these days – especially when the connection is pretty poor (about 0.5Mbps).

The hotel industry needs to wake up and take notice that the world is changing and people have more choice more easily. Added to that, websites like TripAdvisor are allowing people all over the World to share experiences of the hotels.

How many "poor" or "terrible" reviews does it take to affect whether the hotel gets that big conference contract or not?