By Adam Raphael The conclusion in last month’s newsletter, that Booking.com and other online travel agencies have succeeded in sucking billions of pounds out of the hospitality industry because they meet a need, was too kind. If hotels and B&Bs dealt with reservation requests more efficiently, they would not be gouged to the extent they… Read more
By Adam Raphael The Competition and Markets Authority is threatening to prosecute online hotel booking sites for scams ranging from pressure selling and misleading information to hidden charges and commission based rankings. But it is not just consumers who are being gulled. The sad truth is that online travel agents and hotel review sites have… Read more
‘Our large L-shaped room had flower-power wallpaper, and fittings which made it appear like something from the set of a tacky 50s American film. The bed frame was illuminated from beneath, and the bed head similarly from the sides by strip lighting: no bedside lamps, just two flexi LHD spots and a steel framed wall… Read more
By Adam Raphael Music may be the food of love, but muzak—ugh! Admittedly the Guide is not impartial on this issue, but this bee in our bonnet is shared by many GHG readers. ‘Whatever happened to silence?’ one asked in exasperation. Another wrote this week: ‘I could have done without the tacky music which was… 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