Few things annoy me consistently when I am travelling.
But here’s one: hotels that claim to be ethical and green even though you know that their sole motivation is profitability.
The trend began years ago – long before Al Gore discovered the hamburger and the environment, apparently at the same time – but has gathered pace in recent times.
It began with that little card you found in the bathroom that asked you to put off the tap while you brushed your teeth. This was prompted apparently, by a desire to save water. Fair enough. But nearly every hotel that placed such a card had at least one swimming pool and a fountain. Why not start saving water by closing those down?
Then there was the business with the towels. Deluxe hotels have maintained a tradition that some of us would regard as wasteful. They change the bed-sheets and the towels every day, something most of us do not do at home.
The argument for this was one of luxury. Hotels liked us to imagine that we were being pampered as we slept on freshly laundered sheets every night or as we wiped our bodies clean with fresh towels.
But there was no doubt that it was expensive. However, rather than admit that fresh linen was cutting into their profit margins, hotels dressed this up as a concern for the environment. They would only replace our towels, they told us, if we flung them on the floor. When hotels discovered, to their horror, that too many people would do this as a matter of course, they changed this policy. Now they would only replace them if we put them inside the bathtub. I am waiting for the next policy change: they will replace them only if we hide them on top of the cupboard.
Worse still, these economy measures were implemented during an era when hotel chains were making record profits. By posing as environmentalists, they were able to screw consumers who were paying thousands and still feel virtuous about their parsimony.
The shamelessness of hoteliers knows no bounds. Several years ago, I was staying in what was then India’s top luxury resort complete with fancy bathtub. The only problem was that the water was never more than lukewarm and so, by the time you filled the tub, it had the temperature of the average swimming pool.
I know a little bit about hotels. And so I know that whenever you complain about hot water, the staff is trained to say that they will check with the plumber. In fact, the real reason has damn all to do with the plumber. The hotel is trying to save money by not using the boiler in which hot water is heated.
| "I do not dispute that the world faces a serious environmental crisis. But it annoys the hell out of me when unscrupulous businesses turn this crisis into money-making opportunities." |
On this occasion too, I was given the ‘we will send a plumber to your room’ routine. Infuriated by this blatant lie, I phoned the General Manager and told him to check on the boiler. A little while later, the hot water was restored.
The following day I met the General Manager. “I looked into the problem,” he told me. “And I discovered that as an energy-saving measure we had decided to reduce the temperature of the water.”
What a load of bollocks!
What annoys me most is that hotels that pose as champions of the environment and masters of ethical practice are often the least ethical businesses.
Stay in any hotel in Europe and you will find that the vast majority of the staff is paid appallingly. They are usually immigrants from poor countries – these days, from Eastern Europe – who are grateful for whatever employment they can get. Many of them are illegal immigrants and the hotels exploit that status to pay them even less.
While this kind of exploitation takes place in the back of the house, the hotel’s managers pose as ethical environmentalists and lords of luxury.
Now, unfortunately, gullible customers have been sucked into this bogus environmental ethos. The current campaign is to clamp down on flying, presumably on the grounds that if the world’s airlines went bankrupt and millions of people lost their jobs, earth would be a much happier planet.
I see some of the arguments in favour of reducing emissions and saving fossil fuels but it has all now gone much too far. I was reading an international travel magazine today. Readers and celebrities were featured telling us how they did their bid for the environment.
One moron thought that he was helping save the world by refusing to use the moving walkway at the airport even though it would continue to run whether or not he stood on it. Another person said that his contribution to the environment was to travel economy class not club. Presumably, he did not realize that both sections of the aeroplane flew together and created the same emissions.
I do not dispute that the world faces a serious environmental crisis. But it annoys the hell out of me when unscrupulous businesses turn this crisis into money-making opportunities. And when it comes to dimwits who feel that they are symbolically linking hands with Al Gore by refusing to stand on moving walkways, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
(Image attributed to Wikimedia COmmons)
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