The Hotel Inspector: Inhospitable hoteliers out of their depth

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This was published 8 years ago

The Hotel Inspector: Inhospitable hoteliers out of their depth

By Lee Tulloch
Alex Polizzi (centre) in <i>The Hotel Inspector</i>. In the end the show is about making guests feel cherished.

Alex Polizzi (centre) in The Hotel Inspector. In the end the show is about making guests feel cherished.

Imagine finding yourself in a Welsh Village in a B&B called The Mountain View and discovering your view is actually of a steel works.

Imagine being greeted by two big, hairy dogs that sniff your crotch and won't go away. And finding the garden is overrun with pigeons that drop welcoming gifts on your head.

Or that the B&B doesn't actually serve breakfast. And one of the owners is so foul tempered all the time she doesn't believe in giving guests "that warm and fuzzy feeling".

I'm sometimes surprised, although it is rare, to come across people in the hospitality business who are not very hospitable at all. One of my favourite TV programs, The Hotel Inspector, specialises in digging up cases of people who are, frankly, out of their depth as hoteliers, or so misanthropic they shouldn't be in the business at all.

The "inspector" is the wonderfully level-headed Alex Polizzi, granddaughter of Sir Forte, and daughter of Olga Polizzi, a renowned hotel designer who is the sister of Sir Rocco Forte, owner of a portfolio of iconic hotels such as Brown's Hotel in London and The Balmoral in Edinburgh. Alex also manages The Endsleigh in Devon, which her mother owns.

If I owned a small hotel, I'd be delighted if Alex and her crew came to give it a thorough appraisal. But I've been binge-watching a few saved episodes of the Lifestyle Channel series lately and it's astonishing how many inept hoteliers don't cherish her advice.

Take the crusty Lisa and her partner Ellen, proprietors of the aforementioned Mountain View Bed and (not) Breakfast, for instance. Their pets, along with their failure to meet expectations of the view and their limited people skills, mean that the B&B, although inexpensive, has few guests.

Alex Polizzi comes up with several sensible solutions, but Lisa, in particular, is not having any of it. Even when a branding company is hired and the women are finally convinced to change the hotel's name, they change it again once the cameras have left. There's even a suggestion at the end of the program that the pigeons, which the women stopped feeding on Alex's advice, have come back.

Also resistant to Alex's sage advice is Jackie, who has owned and operated The Little Thatch Inn in Gloucester for 40 years. It's stuck in the 1970s, along with Jackie's mindset, and the bank is refusing to extend her loan. Her long-suffering daughter, Beth, who is not a hotelier, has returned to try to turn her stubborn mother's fortunes around.

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Jackie can't see why anything has to change. She likes the dull brown decor, the nasty tablecloths in the mostly empty restaurant, the old fashioned menu. Beth is very open to Alex's practical suggestions but they have to drag Jackie kicking and screaming into the 21st Century, with a good dose of mother-daughter angst along the way.

Then there's the overworked Charlotte of The Grant Arms Hotel in Ramsbottom, who has to be convinced what she thinks are impeccably clean rooms are 'manky' in Alex's words.

Or the humourless Ken who insists 'working people' like the tacky decor and poor customer service in his Hotel Celebrity in Bournemouth. Alex does an astonishing job of injecting some humour and fun kitsch into the place through themed events, menus and cocktails (with Ken still insisting 'working people' don't drink cocktails.)

In the end, the show is about the essence of hospitality, making guests feel cherished. British sisters Karen and Sarah injected all their savings into renovating La Casa, a small eight-room hotel in Torrox, on the Costa del Sol. It's a beautiful town and Alex deems the award-winning budget hotel lovely but the sisters are in danger of losing everything because they have few guests.

Alex sorts out the website and branding, raises the room rates and brings some travel journalists to Spain to experience the hotel. The result is more exposure and more bookings and two delighted hoteliers.

What stands out about this episode is what gregarious people Karen and Sarah obviously are, unlike some of the other hoteliers Alex advises. They're warm and humorous, great cooks, and determined that their guests have a wonderful time.

La Casa looks idyllic, but the reason I now have it on my list is that I can't wait to have these women look after me. That, in the end, rather than cushions and curtains, is what counts the most.

See also: What it's like to stay in Singapore's most iconic hotel
See also: Inside Europe's most erotic hotel room

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