I wonder what happened here, Watson

 

As many of you know, I have had the opportunity to travel a lot, as well as of being involved with the hospitality industry for a number of years.

In anything relating to travel, the customer experience – positive and negative – is dependent both on “hardware” factors (eg seat configuration on a plane, set of cars available for rental, hotel location) and a lot also on people factors (customer service or booking department, front desk and so on).

Referring to hotels in particular, I believe we ought to recognise the great contribution given by a group of employees who are, in my view, often forgotten or at least not recognised appropriately: housekeeping and cleaning.

These people have a tough job, often rigorously monitored by a number of efficiency metrics, with very limited interaction with customers, and often in exchange for a relatively low remuneration.

Many jobs in hotels depend on tips.  Yet I find that – because of the lack of direct interaction – housekeepers are often not tipped.  I find it quite absurd that someone who – uninvited – lifts my bag and carries it for two metres (after I travelled 20,000 Km from Sydney to the US) could stand there expecting a tip, and yet a cleaner who has the responsibility of making the room spotless cannot  receive an extra thank you for his or her work.

A faithful reader of this blog- Ashley – was telling me of numerous horror stories, especially in the US, where cleaners take revenge on clients by rinsing their tooth-brush in the toilet or going through luggage in search of cash.  So he now leaves large tips as soon as he arrives.

Events like that described above might happen.  But – despite me spending over 200 nights in hotels on average in the last few years – I never had a bad experience.  I did have a few “funny” experiences.

The best was probably in Johannesburg, South Africa, now almost 20 years ago.  The country had just abandoned apartheid and was finally opening up to international tourism.  The hotel industry was booming with new properties being opened at a rapid rate. New staff was being hired all the time and probably put to work without appropriate training.  I was working in the room and I had put out the “do not disturb sign”.  I was really concentrating on my work when I felt that bizarre sensation of someone looking over my shoulder; in fact, a cleaning lady had gotten into the room and was just looking at me.  I was obviously startled and confronted her: “What are you doing here, didn’t you see the – Do No Disturb – Sign?” I asked; her reply: “Yes of course sir, that is why I came in very quietly…”.

Well apart from horror stories and funny memories, housekeeping and cleaners should be recognised more. They do largely a fantastic, underappreciated job.  Sometimes, unbeknown to most guest, they do a very ingrate job, especially when they have to clean after particularly unruly or dirty guests.  We all hear of celebrities and drunks trashing their rooms. This phenomenon is more frequent that one might think.  I was recently staying in Bangkok, and my room was not ready on time.  Actually worse, the delay kept growing longer.  When I requested a formal explanation, the answer was: “well we had four people working on your room for over two hours, you have no idea in which condition the previous guest left it”.  Similar stories abound.  Earlier in the week, I was talking to the director of a 5-6 stars hotel chain.  How frequently he hears of guests defecating in the middle of the room and other odd behaviour.

People who do these things are disgusting, clearly they have so much money they never have to clean after themselves.  I also know (at least in Australia and Asia) that most frequently these horrible hotel guests tend to belong to two very specific ethnic and geographic groups, but I won’t mention them because I do not have sufficiently solid data.  You can guess.

And also because this posting is not about the hygiene of various segments of the population, rather a tribute to the great job cleaners and housekeeping do in hotels.  I always leave a thank you note and a tip to these unsung heroes when I leave a room.  Let’s think about these people and how important they are to our travel experience.  Thank you cleaners and housekeeping.