‘One evening we arrived in the lounge area to await our aperitif. The only free table had been left in a poor state with crisps and nuts spread about. We were surprised that the waiter who took our order seemed not to notice the state of the table and floor, and attempted to clean the… Read more
By Adam Raphael What is the hottest trend of 2018? Veganism has a claim. The number of full-time vegans has grown fourfold in a decade. Advocates of a plant-based diet were once regarded as weird. But no longer. The problem for hotels is that it is not easy dealing with the demands of the fruit… Read more
As much as we are advocates of the written word when it comes to recommending hotels, we have to admit that sometimes, a picture is worth a thousand of them. Following on from our article last year, here are the most popular hotels to date in 2018 on GHG Instagram… A post shared by The… Read more
By Adam Raphael After years of dodging responsibility, TripAdvisor will finally have to accept that it is a publisher and not just a platform for travellers’ views over which it has no control. That is one benefit from the row provoked by Facebook’s sharing its users’ data with third parties. The Wild West of… Read more
By Adam Raphael Online travel agents account for half of all European hotel bookings. The commissions levied, ranging from 15% to 35% on each booking, amount to a lucrative world-wide business worth more than $1 billion a year. Booking.com and its competitors are super-efficient; millions of travellers rely on their slick websites. But their… Read more
By Adam Raphael For an example of bureaucracy gone beserk, resulting in one of the Guide’s hotels being fined £17,000 for breaching a law it didn’t know existed, this story takes some beating. The Minister for Commerce should be ashamed. The saga begins a couple of years ago when a French college in Limoges asked… Read more
The latest Independent Hotel show awards, in association with Sky, acknowledged the outstanding innovation and creativity displayed by the 2017 winner for Outstanding New Hotel, No.15 Great Pulteney in creating and maintaining a first-class guest experience. These awards, which were first introduced in 2012, are voted for by hotel guests, championing those who set the… Read more
By Adam Raphael GHG Newsletter January 2018 Visit Britain is forecasting 42 million overseas visits this year, representing an increase in spending of nearly 7 percent. Hospitality is a growth business thanks to a world-wide increase in tourism. But the boom in hotel investment in this country appears to be running ahead of reality. A… Read more
By Adam Raphael If you view life as a series of cockups, you will rarely be disappointed. Brexit, however, is in a class of its own. Last week’s deal on the Irish border is a diplomatic fudge which avoids hard answers. The reality of how we leave the EU has still to be played out…. Read more