Personal Encounter in a Popular Guest Room
During the last December Holiday of 2013, I happen to be in a popular hotel in the United Kingdom. I liked this particular hotel after going through their online profile and the services as per the writings on the walls painted a five star treatment service I was about to enjoy in a few days time. On the material day, the building never disappointed, it was artistically designed and with serene environment. However, this special feeling and impression barely lasted for thirty minutes when I got the first shock of my life in the bathroom with a sparking hot shower head.
The hot shower was uncontrollable signalizing overheating and malfunctioning wiring system, the first water burns forced me to turn it off and forcefully resort to cold shower. Things got worse when I realized there was no balcony to enjoy the cool breeze and cool my slowly healing hot water burns. The only air inlet system seemed compromised with the invasion of tinny spiders creating their web against the thin wire mesh. All I wanted at this point was to pack my things and leave with a self-promise never to come back. To date, I have never sought alternative accommodation in this hotel when in the United Kingdom.
According to Jones and Zemki (181), there is need for hotel managers to ensure maximum customer comfort and satisfaction through sustainable and safety hospitality practices. For example, they should ensure a perfect heating system right from the initial designing of the guest rooms to adopting regulated heating systems such as the thermostat, packaged units and ensuring quality air circulation through proper ventilation and also air-conditioning the rooms to give the guest absolute control of the room temperature to enhance customer satisfaction and comfort. Also, they should properly and timely manage public room’s temperature as guests have little or no control of these shared spaces.
Similar to heating system, the need to have a well-functioning cooling system is of great importance in satisfying the guest needs and exceeding their expectation of a perfect hotel service. This can be done through regulating things which contribute to the cooling load effect as this may interfere with customer’s comfort. As season changes from cold to warm, installing and ensuring proper maintenance of these cooling systems will not only save you costs, but will also improve the safety of your customers (Walker 54) which should not be compromised at any given time.
Lastly, proper ventilation practices are beneficial both to the hotel workers as well as the guests. There are a number of things that managers must ask themselves regarding ventilation before implementing a new system or improving the current ventilation system. The first one concerns the areas to ventilate such as the bathroom, living room and the bedroom. All these rooms will require different ventilation approach. Consequently, there is a need for customer need assessment before implementing any ventilation system.
Whereas ventilation can be seen as best safety and health practices in hospitality set-up, too much ventilation has the ability to compromise customer comfort, safety and satisfaction. It is important to get it right before customers start walking out and never coming back. An insight into heating systems, cooling and ventilation has shaped my views regarding approaches to guest satisfaction, comfort and safety in the hospitality niche. The traditional nice bed, clean bedding as the most important things in the guest room/ hotel business mentally has been transformed to look beyond the sheets to give the customers what they want, when they want it, how they want it safely and conveniently.
Work Cited
Walker, John R. Introduction to Hospitality. United Stes: Pearson Education, 2016. Print.
Zemke, Dina, and Thomas Jones. Hospitality Facilities Management. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2009. Print.
