I once stayed in the worst guest house in the country.
Now I know it takes some doing, but s’true-as-bob this was the worst. No table, no chair, no side table in the bedroom; cracks in the walls, damp in the ceiling; no hot water in the shower; and the shampoo and soap bottles were empty leftovers from three guests ago.
Breakfast included eggs but no toast (“We only serve toast every second day, on the days when we don’t serve eggs.” No. Really. I couldn’t make this up.) And the owner was psychotic (he screamed at me for getting lost after he’d given me clear-as-mud directions for finding the place) and his dogs were worse. And they were hu-uge.
Of course it looked divine on line, of course I paid all five nights in advance, and of course I was in town for a conference so there was nothing else available and I couldn’t leave even if I wanted to.
And, when I decided on the second day of my stay to have my breakfast at the lovely, thatched 4-star resort down the way, of course I discovered that their rack rate was fifty bucks cheaper than what I’d paid at Roach Lodge.
What made me angriest, though, was that I had no one to blame but myself: I hadn’t checked whether Roach Lodge was star graded.
Now I’m not saying that every graded establishment is as good as its grading promise, but really, the lack of grading should have told me everything I needed to know.
Still, you have to wonder: at the Tourism Grading Council’s annual breakfast (held yesterday in the ICC) we were told that South African Tourism has 61,000 products on its database. And that 13,000 of them are accommodation establishments – although only 5,932 are graded establishments.
When I travel I consider myself the ultimate Average Jo: on my budget, all I really want is a clean room, a firm bed, and a hot shower. (Doesn’t everyone?)
And that’s why I think that the assurance that you’ve been graded is the one bit of insurance you owe me as your customer.
(This article appeared first in today’s edition of Indaba Daily News – get the full publication on line at www.indaba-southafrica.co.za).
Heads Up
Have you voted for Table Mountain as one of the new 7 Wonders of Nature? NO? Why not? Ok, ok, doesn’t matter – just go there now: SMS Table to 34874 or go to www.votefortablemountain.com.
Stumble It!
3 users commented in " To Grade or Not To Grade (Indaba 2011, Day 4) "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI am sorry to disagree with you about star grading.
We stay regularly in B&B’s and our experience is opposite. We stayed in 3 star accommodations not worth carrying the name B&B. I know you can complain, but if the inspectors are there everything is oke and we are the bad people.
There are a lot of B&B’s with perfect accommodation and breakfast but they do not want to pay the extraordinary high fee to be graded.
You are always welcome to check our B&B as we are not graded.
Regards
Ben
Thanks Martin – Star Grading is a universal benchmark of quality and says a lot about your professionalism. The grading fees are now dependent on your room rate – very reasonable and in fact in many cases a lot less than what was charged before. Besides, you now get the plaque included in your fee and the very detailed and comprehensive Universal Access grading. A private consultancy just for that would be very expensive. Also, take a look at other guides/collections where fees are astronomical and they all ride on the back of the star grading allocated to a property. As for the properties that display stars that have either lapsed or been downgraded, I hope they know that in terms of the new CPA they can expect legal proceedings as the TGCSA is about to go after them.
Hi Martin,
I would like to give you my input regarding graded or not graded.
Recently I visited a 3star guest house, quite a large group!! No names mentioned.
Saturday afternoon, we were driving around and around to find our establishment, very poor directions, eventually we found the place the cleaner/receptionist I don’t know her position let us in at the back door.
We handed our booking form to her, whereby she was staring at the form in her hand and asked if we’ve got a booking with them. We didn’t know what’s up she looked at the form with no response at all. I thought they must have double booked us. I asked her if there’s a problem she said no nothing wrong, then she said I see you have paid in full.
She said we are at the wrong address, they are part of the group, but this is the rooms division, she will diriect us to the lodge.
Arrived there, the apartment was not ready, we originally booked an apartment with twin beds, but were given one with a double bed, when I questioned her about this, she said the other apartment that’s available has got only 4 single beds, of course we took the one with the single beds.
No soap in the bathroom, no broom, bucket or mop, no milk for your fist cup of coffee, no sponge. I questioned her about the milk she said she will bring us powder milk, the rubbish bin was broken, no bag in the rubbish bin or in the bin in the bathroom, nothing to clean the bath with. When I questioned the cleaner regarding the broken rubbish bin and no bin bags she said she had only started 2 weeks ago and no one had told her to report these things.
We went shopping to give them time to finish cleaning our apartment. On returning – still no milk, no soap, when we phoned the office we were told that this is a self-catering place and they do not supply milk,but will deliver liquid soap for the hands.
Regardless to say we paid for 2 nights, but decided to leave the next morning. I work at Dolphin View Self-catering Holiday Apartments in Heroldsbay and are not graded very reasonable rates, but you can visit us any day and will find the place better than some graded establishments.
In conclusion graded or not graded it all depends on management.
Regards
Susan
Leave A Reply