Early today I was alerted to a fabulously waspish Tweet from Hanoi-based blogger and journalist Steve Jackson. He said: “Travel writing is second lowest form of writing. The lowest form is travel tips (don’t pack too much – remember to haggle).”
Sigh. Obviously I’m not going to agree with him, as that would damage my fragile ego far too much. But he does have a point – 95% of the time, travel writing is the soft option and getting respect amongst a crowd of hard-bitten investigative journalists or warzone reporters is always going to be an exercise in futility.
But there are at least five less credible ways to be making a living as a journalist. And for the benefit of any hack out there churning out some copy they’re slightly ashamed of as a way of paying the rent, just be grateful that you’re not doing one of the following:
Middle class mum in a weekend supplement
“You’re not going to like this,” gasped The Other Half. “We’re completely out of balsamic vinegar.” Quite the moment for the little darlings to burst in, seemingly having used their new school blazers as Walter Raleigh-style carpets on a marsh…
Ghost-writing The Sun’s News In Briefs
Nicola, 23, from Essex, says: “The complexities of the carbon-trading scheme proposed under the Copenhagen talks led to the formation of antagonistic blocs, and distracted from the core business of binding emissions targets.”
Red carpet reporting
HITS: Natalie Cassidy’s funky take on a Benedictine smock and Jenny Powell’s bold shoulder pad/ cape combo. MISSES: Toyah Willcox turning up in the same dress she wore to the National Opening of a Bag last year and Gina G’s magenta nipple tassles.
Relationship quizzes in women’s magazines
How does he like to show his affection when you have time alone together? A) Fumbling around like a blind man looking for a door handle, B) Licking your arm or C) Standing at an intimate distance from your face and bellowing Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol until you start crying.
Conducting interviews for Nuts and Zoo
Q: So are you proud to be in this week’s list of Britain’s top 100 bums?
A: Of course – it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Well, since being in last week’s list of Britain’s top 100 boobs, anyway.
Q: And do you like, you know, having sex and being rude and stuff?
Tags: journalism, Travel Writing
Is there a point to travel writing courses, other than to provide people who don’t do much travel writing with a bit of extra cash at the expense of the clueless and unsuitable?
Student media lectures
On Saturday I went along to the Student Media Day at Sheffield University, where a few of my old university friends were giving talks to the new breed of lambs to the slaughter.
My primary aim was to go for a jolly good piss-up afterwards, but it was interesting to hear the varying degrees of honesty in the advice being given.
Travel writing courses
It also reminded me of something I’m seeing far too often – courses on how to become a travel writer. Put “travel writing course” into Google, and you get 3,460 results. Even assuming that many of these results refer to the same courses, that’s still a terrifying number.
It most certainly doesn’t reflect the number of opportunities for paid work available to would-be travel writers. And I smell snake oil.
Dubious pedigree
A quick look through some of these courses shows them to be of remarkably dubious pedigree. The names of those leading them seem strangely unfamiliar – largely, I suspect, because they don’t make a significant percentage of their income from travel writing.
The first I clicked on was a one day course at an adult education centre in the Cotswolds. It is being run by someone who has written five novels (albeit ones that suspiciously don’t seem to show up very high on the list when you put her name into Amazon) and some articles for magazines not noted for their travel content.
Background checks
A little background checking into the credentials of others running these courses shows a similar story. Some are undoubtedly very good travel writers with a regular history of being published, but most are people who may have done a little bit of travel writing, don’t make a living from it and leading courses on something they don’t really do themselves to make up the shortfall.
My suspicion is that the genuinely successful travel writers who could give valuable advice at such talks are too busy being genuinely successful travel writers to so.
Travel writing: A specific skill?
But the idea of people making a quick buck out of dreaming greenhorns isn’t what really worries me – it is the concept that travel writing is a specific skill that can be taught in a lecture hall or seminar room.
A quick (admittedly statistically insignificant) straw poll on Twitter saw some interesting responses. Most of the people I know and respect as full-time travel writers had never been on a course. This doesn’t surprise me at all – most travel writers I know didn’t start out as travel writers; they started as something very different and fell into it.
Good writing/ journalism
And here’s the crux: travel writing isn’t a specific skill set. Most of it is simply about applying the same theories that apply to good writing and good journalism. It’s being able to identify a story, keeping eyes and ears open, conveying ideas and observations effectively, interviewing well and digging for further information where necessary.
The ‘travel’ part of travel writing is almost inconsequential. It’s essentially researching and writing up a story as you would an arts, food, sport, news background or music feature – it’s just in a different location.
A course on travel writing is a little like a course on driving Ferraris or fronting a rock band at Wembley Stadium. Get the key skills right and it shouldn’t matter what car you’re driving, where you’re playing a gig or what you’re writing about. But being able to drive, sing or write comes first.
Personality type?
A certain personality type is needed too. I don’t know a single travel writer working full time who needs to be guided round all the time. They’re all seekers rather than followers; people who love learning rather than being taught.
And this is what makes me most suspicious of travel writing courses – both those who lead them and those who attend. Selling dreams to dreamers is easy, but arming them with enough to make those dreams come true is virtually impossible. They need to be prepared to hunt the components of the dream, not have it laid on as a package.
Those running the courses surely know this – are they prepared to overlook it for the sake of making an easy couple of hundred quid?
What do you think? Ever been on a travel writing course? Share your thoughts by commenting below.
Tags: courses, Travel Writing
ONE
Put tables alongside the security queue. Then we can get our laptops out early and reduce everyone else’s queuing time rather than waiting until just before we get to the conveyor belt. It is virtually impossible to pull a laptop out of a bag whilst holding said bag, incidentally.
TWO
Employ passport control officers who have a little consideration for frequent travellers. You know, ones who can fit stamps in the gaps of already used pages, rather than stick their handiwork right in the middle of a crisp new page.
THREE
Get rid of those awful taps that you have to hold down in order to get water out. Anyone who says they can wash their hands properly under those things is lying, and they seem particularly prevalent in airports for some reason.
FOUR
Put plug sockets near the seating so we can plug our laptops in.
FIVE
And the obvious one… OFFER FREE WIFI ACCESS.
Tags: air travel, airports, free wifi, internet
Dear hotel chains,
While I completely understand your right to brand your hotels – after all, your guests will often choose to stay with you because they know what the brand name usually offers – you are starting to take the piss.
Let me explain something about names. My name is David Whitley. It is not David Whitley (an Eric Whitley child). Neither is it The Travel Journalist David Whitley, a human being by Eric Whitley Fathering Services Networking Services Ltd (TM).
You see, there is a difference between a name and a sentence. If your name is a sentence in itself, it is too long. And, hotel chains, I’m the one that gets to decide on sub-clauses in sentences – not you.
So if you think I’m ever going to refer to you as the Ritz-Carlton Chicago (A Four Seasons Hotel) or the Hawksbill by Rex Resorts, Antigua, then think again. You can be the Chicago Ritz Carlton, the Chicago Four Seasons, the Antigua Hawksbill or the Antigua Rex but if you insist on branding everything then just pick one name and stick to it. Having two is greedy, long-winded and – 90% of the time – grammatically dubious.
The same goes for you, Marriott Boca Raton Towneplace Suites and Hilton Seychelles Northolme Resort and Spa. And all of your pompous, word count-devouring chums. You’re either the Marriott Boca Raton or the Boca Raton Towneplace Suites; the Hilton Seychelles or the Northolme Seychelles. Decide which brand is strongest, and bloody well keep it to one.
If this trend for turning hotel names into corporate identity statements continues, then who knows where we’ll end up? Why be a sentence, when you can be a whole paragraph? Heck, why not insist that every website using your name plays a little corporate jingle as soon as the page loads, like Intel?
Your sincerely,
David Whitley – not Travel Writer and Blogger Mr David Keir Whitley Esquire of Sheffield, England, by Eric and Rosie Whitley (a UK national) *ding ding ding ding ding*.
Brown and bullying
Today’s brouhaha about British Prime Minister Gordon Brown being accused of bullying is a classic example of what is worryingly wrong about journalism today. It’s not about what happened, but who says it happened.
National Bullying Helpline
For those who haven’t been following the saga, here’s a quick recap: A Christine Pratt of the National Bullying Helpline has contacted the media to say that people working for Gordon Brown have called her helpline to complain about bullying.
The media has run with this story, largely without questioning who Christine Pratt and the National Bullying Helpline are. The attitude seems to be: “Seems official enough, let’s run with it.”
Conflict of interests
Since then, others have pointed out the links between the helpline and the Conservative party, and also pointed out that Christine and David Pratt run a business that sells investigations into workplace bullying. This is a major conflict of interests, and the claims should have been treated with a great deal more scepticism than they were.
Voice of authority
Alas, we live in a culture where something is a story as long as someone reasonably important, with a vague visage of authority, says it is. It matters not whether the allegation is true or not – only that someone with a fancy title and media profile is willing to put their name to it.
Corroborating statements
And the same, unfortunately, applies in travel. A couple of years ago, I stopped working for one outlet after I was asked to provide an outside source that could confirm something I had discovered myself on the ground.
Frankly, I thought it was ridiculous that I had to corroborate something that I had personally experienced with a link to an article in a major newspaper that said the same thing. This wasn’t anything major or controversial either – it was about the relative heat in two Finnish saunas.
Respected sources
I was pissed off on numerous fronts. Surely the whole purpose of me writing it was that I’d been there? And if we all had to back up every statement with a quote from a respected source, then nothing new would ever be written.
Lonely Planet destinations list
The flipside is that whenever a respected source does say something, it is repeated endlessly as gospel. It infuriates me when Lonely Planet pumps out its up-and-coming destinations list, and it is repeated by all and sundry, essentially setting a large part of the editorial agenda for the next year.
Rent-a-quotes
It’s not that these travel experts don’t have valid expertise – quite to the contrary. But publications should have the balls to hire their own people to do their own investigations and work out what is really happening rather than relying on phoning up the same predictable cast of media-friendly rent-a-quotes.
Ask an expert
To be fair, this problem isn’t as chronic in travel as it is in news journalism. There is still some excellent writing out there where the story is allowed to tell itself rather than it being about who is doing the telling. But I fear the ask-an-expert approach is an ever encroaching danger. After all, as much as I like Simon Calder, I don’t want to have to ask him for his opinion every time I write something…
Tags: journalism, travel expert, Travel Writing
The joys of modern banking
In many ways, modern banking is wonderful. I can travel pretty much anywhere in the world and withdraw money from a machine using my trusty bank card. I can also pay for many things with my credit card just by a swipe and sign or tapping in a PIN.
It’s a million times easier than the old system of travellers’ cheques and carrying huge swathes of cash that have been exchanged at home. But the banks don’t half seem determined to wreck this painless joy in the name of security.
Air Miles credit card
For credit cards, I use the Lloyds TSB Airmiles duo. This is great for two reasons – firstly I get both American Express and Mastercard (useful for when one isn’t accepted) and, secondly, I earn Air Miles on everything I spend.
But LloydsTSB doesn’t seem to get that such a credit card is likely to be used by people who travel frequently. And they have an irritating habit of putting a block on it when I make a transaction in, say, Moldova or Samoa.
Credit card blocks
This has happened to me a few times now, and the ritual is always the same. I make a hugely expensive call from my mobile to say “Can you please take that bloody block off?” and they try to pretend that putting it on in the first place was part of their excellent service. It’s part of the security measures designed to protect me – unusual spending patterns get flagged up, and blocks occasionally instituted for safety’s sake.
Unusual spending patterns
I then have to explain that I am a travel writer. I use the card for both work and pleasure, and I conduct both in all manner of obscure corners across the globe. There will always be unusual spending patterns – purchase of a new computer, flights from an obscure airline, cash withdrawals in the middle of nowhere – because my life follows unusual patterns. Ones, it should be noted, that should be ideally suited to this particular pair of credit cards.
Beating the system
Next, I will ask if there is any way to circumvent this system so that I don’t have to go through the faff of periodically unblocking my card in phone calls from Whoopwhoopistan. They’ll say no – it’s a fully automated system and that the best way to prevent this is to phone and inform them every time I’m about to go abroad so that the dates can be logged.
Genuine transactions
What an utter pain in the arse this is. Of course I’m not going to do that – and neither should I have to. There should be some way of logging in the system that I travel abroad frequently and that these ‘suspicious’ transactions are highly likely to be genuine.
Security obsession
Such obsession with security has also made using my current account a pain in the backside. I bank with Nationwide, and use the Visa debit card that comes with that account. I also make a lot of transactions via internet banking.
Card Reader
This was great right up until the point where Nationwide helpfully sent me a ‘Card Reader’ in the post. For added security, I now have to put my card into this and enter all manner of numbers and passcodes before my internet banking transaction is allowed to go through.
I also have to take the bloody thing everywhere with me in case I should need to pay a bill, or transfer some money while I’m abroad. And as nuisance items to pack go, it’s up there at the top. I really shouldn’t need to have to take what looks like a little blue calculator with me.
Better service?
But the thing that annoys me most is that the banks, building societies and credit card companies claim that such irritants are about offering a better service. Let’s get one thing straight – it is not. Credit card blocks and card readers are not introduced for my security – they’re an arse-covering measure. The banks/ credit card companies know darned well that they become liable for anything bought on a card that costs over £100 if it is done so fraudulently. In other words, they are the ones that have to pay for it in the end.
And it’s far better to annoy the customer in the name of security and service than it is to stump up, isn’t it?
Tags: banks, credit cards, money, technology
Millionaire’s giveaway
A fascinating story has been doing the rounds today about an Austrian millionaire who plans to give away his entire £3m fortune and live like a pauper.
Karl Radeber seems to have decided that money makes him unhappy, and whilst I’ll not be agreeing with that any time soon, one quote attributed to him fascinates me.
Luxury holiday revelation
According to the Daily Telegraph, he was on a luxury holiday in Hawai’i when he realised what he was going to do.
“It was the biggest shock in my life, when I realised how horrible, soulless and without feeling the five star lifestyle is,” he said. “In those three weeks, we spent all the money you could possibly spend. But in all that time, we had the feeling we hadn’t met a single real person – that we were all just actors. The staff played the role of being friendly and the guests played the role of being important and nobody was real.”
I read this, and thought: “I’m glad it’s not just me.”
Discomfort
Let’s get one thing straight: I have no plans to give away all my money, and if I did the windfalls for those involved would be laughably pitiful. The Radeber story did bring into focus how uncomfortable I am with five star hotels and pampering in general, however.
Five star fears
To put it simply, I am crap at luxury travel. Put me in an extremely expensive, posh hotel and I can usually be found thinking: “Well, this is a bit much, isn’t it?”
I’m afraid of committing some unspoken social faux pas, I’m forever baffled by all the unnecessary flourishes in the rooms and I’m terrified that I’m going to end up being billed for extortionate amounts if I so much as touch a random piece of fruit or miniature toiletry.
Porter problems
I’m also dreadful at being looked after – I squirm whenever a genuflecting receptionist brings out a ‘refreshing’ towel on a tray and I can’t stand it when a porter wants to take my bag for me. I’m used to carrying it, it’s got important things in it, and I want it when I get to my room – not twenty minutes afterwards when a man in a ridiculous costume turns up expecting money for something I’d prefer to do myself.
Restaurant reservations
I don’t like restaurants where I feel I have to dress a certain way – and I point blank refuse to eat in restaurants where certain items of clothing (such as a jacket) are stipulated. I get frustrated when presented with a dégustation menu – I don’t want nine tiny but supposedly amazing courses – I want two or three courses done well without any of the fannying about. I don’t want a waiter explaining every ingredient of the dish as if talking to a child before he puts it on the table.
Spa treatments: relaxing?
Much the same applies to spas. I’ve tried all manner of spa treatments in the name of work, and have been left non-plussed by them. To me, a massage is relatively pleasant in the same way that Lily Allen song is – relatively pleasant but certainly not worth paying for.
And if the point of a spa is relaxation, then it fails. I can’t relax in a spa – I start thinking about things I need to do, planning things and generally feeling a bit awkward about someone rubbing my back to the sound of birdsong.
Horses for courses
While I’ve stayed in enough five star hotels to be able to distinguish a good one from an overrated one, and I know some are far more relaxed than others. It’s a personality thing, though. Someone like me – who is terrible at relaxing, feels guilty about being pampered and finds expensive flourishes incredibly wasteful – is never going to be suited to the lifestyle of ultra-luxurious travel.
Buying into the dream
So why do I feel bad about this, like I’m missing out on something? Is it because these elements of luxury travel are constantly pushed as something to aspire to? I – and the countless others who undoubtedly feel the same way – should undoubtedly just accept that it’s not my/ our cup of tea. Surely it’s better to embrace personality traits that to force square pegs into round holes? Either way – thumbs up to Karl Radeber for telling it how it is, rather than staying quiet because he hasn’t bought into the dream and is afraid to admit it.
Does anyone else feel the same way when faced with refreshing towels, spa menus and degustation dinners? The support group starts here…
Tags: hotels, luxury travel, restaurants, spas
Corrections
My previous post – Bloggers vs Journalists: Why bloggers are second class citizens – seems to have stirred up quite a debate.
There are a few things that have been brought to my attention since that I thought I should add. First of all (and somewhat going against my argument), it seems as though the budget Dubai article that raised my ire was commissioned. Well, accepted for publication at least.
The article in question has now been taken down by the Amateur Traveler site – possibly because so many people poured scorn on it. As Robert Cole points out – the piece in question can (temporarily) still be seen in the Bing cache.
InterContinental Hotels
Secondly, I said the article was clearly the result of a junket hosted by InterContinental Hotels. A bit of further investigation (and a hat tip goes out to Shaney Hudson here), shows that the only traces of the author’s previously published work are to be found on the InterContinental Hotels Priority Club site. There, the author is described as: “a dedicated Platinum Ambassador member & The Community Ombudsman who travels worldwide & is an IHG brand expert.”
Conflict of interests
I can’t say for sure that she got her hotels for free in Dubai, but there is a clear, undisclosed conflict of interests here. It’s fine to put a little factbox at the bottom of a piece suggesting Hotel X or Hotel Y as a place to stay when you’ve stayed there. It’s another thing entirely to present the hotels of a group you’ve got a clear relationship with as the only budget options within a destination and refer to them continually throughout what is supposed to be a well-researched destination guide.
Poor editing
This was a case of desperately poor writing. But more importantly – and again this goes against my argument somewhat – it was a case of desperately poor editing. Chris Christensen of Amateur Traveler decided to put the article up, probably knowing how bad it was. It’s also difficult to understand why the obvious conflict of interests wasn’t highlighted.
Independent publishing on the web
Now here’s why I think my point is still valid. Chris of Amateur Traveler freely admits that the site is something he does in his spare time. He has set the site up as an independent publisher – but an independent publisher with none of the traditional high ‘old media’ publishing costs. Anyone can set up a site similar to Amateur Traveler.
He doesn’t make enough from the site to quit his full time job, and is clearly reliant on people submitting guest posts for free. Chris hasn’t been selected and paid to run the site because he’s the best qualified person to do so. There was no competition for the role – he has done it himself as a hobby, because he can.
Checks and balances
Again, this comes down to checks and balances. There are more in ‘old media’ journalism, and excreta such as the Budget Dubai post are less likely to slip through the net. Such pieces are less likely to be commissioned in the first place, and they’re more likely to be ‘spiked’ (ie. Not run at all). Chris should have been brave enough to respond to the author and say: “Thanks for your contribution, but I’m not running it – it’s awful.”
Lower standards?
When the writers aren’t paid, the editors aren’t paid and the publishers can set up what they like at minimal cost, running it as a hobby, then the average standard is likely to drop. I repeat what I said in the previous post – there is some brilliant blogging out there, but it is largely drowned out by the tidal wave of detritus. There are too many people shouting, and very few have anything to say.
Rule of thumb for bloggers
So I’d like to propose something to my fellow bloggers (yes, I am one, as uncomfortable as I may be with the title at times). Before you publish something, ask yourself this: “Am I adding anything new or useful here? Or am I merely contributing to the wash of pointless noise?”
A crude analogy
Anyone can whop their genitals out onto the coffin at grandma’s funeral – it doesn’t mean that they should. And doing so doesn’t make them a Chippendale.
Tags: blogging, budget travel, hotels, online travel, Travel Writing
Or The Curse of the Woman Who Didn’t Know When To Shut Up.
Difference between bloggers and journalists
A few weeks ago, the ever-excellent Matthew Teller hosted a debate on his blog about the difference between bloggers and journalists.
It’s something of a hoary old debate, but some excellent points were raised. Key amongst these are that journalists get edited and bloggers – by and large – don’t.
A platform for all
My personal view is that the title – blogger, writer, columnist, journalist – doesn’t matter. Everyone should be judged on the quality of what they write. What the blogosphere changes is the number of people given a platform. Anyone can set up a blog and spout off about what they like. Sometimes this leads to brilliant writing, useful information dissemination and must-read insight.
Dull writing
More often than not, alas, it leads to turgid, generic wordblather that could just as easily have been turned out by a trained dolphin picking out random excerpts from tourist board press releases. Some of the bloggers who do this are inexplicably popular – largely, I suspect, because there is an informal network of similar bloggers indulging each other in relentless cross-promotion.
But this isn’t necessarily a failure of blogging as a medium – there’s enough turgid, generic wordblather printed in traditional newspapers and magazines to turn the Amazon into a barren plain.
One of the worst travel guides you’ll ever see
The real problem comes when material is published on blogs that is so outrageously awful that it becomes misleading. For example of this, look no further than this execrable piece on doing Dubai on a budget. It is written by someone who managed to spend US$10,000 in a week and a half – and that’s including getting free accommodation most of the way due to her clearly being on a junket sponsored by Intercontinental Hotels. Not that there is any disclosure of this junket – it’s just obvious from the fact that the only hotels mentioned as budget accommodation options are owned by Intercontinental Hotels.
Straight from the guidebook?
Most of the other information, if not ripped straight out of someone else’s guidebook, may as well have been. The author rarely offers any indication that she has actually been to Dubai, and when she does, the true horrors emerge.
The worst bits
A couple of sample paragraphs:
“Lunch and other dinners can be eaten at McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken (very popular in Dubai), and other cheap eateries. I have made it a tradition to eat at international McDonald’s around the world.”
And…
“Try to visit the poor areas of Dubai like the town of Deira to people watch and take photos. As any place, Dubai has non wealthy areas known as the slums.”
Is this really budget Dubai?
Both stagger me. So the way to enjoy Dubai on a budget is to eat a Big Mac and take pictures of poor people in ‘slums’? (Incidentally, having been to Deira, I can safely say that whilst standards of housing are lower, ‘slum’ in the sense that any normal person would know it – ie. Mumbai, South African townships – is way off the mark.)
What we essentially have here is a writer who can’t stick to a budget herself, writing what masquerades as a guide to doing a destination on a budget. She has clearly done little independent research, she shows no insight and she continually slips in completely out-of-context mentions for companies that have given her free stuff. It’s an appalling piece of at best misleading and at worst deceitful writing, and should never have been published.
Second class citizens
But because it’s a blog, it can be published. And that, in a nutshell, is why bloggers are likely to remain as second class citizens in comparison to commissioned journalists unless something changes rather drastically.
It’s fine when it comes to spouting opinion – everyone’s entitled to their own. But when it comes to presenting information and guidance, then it is logical to defer to someone who has been commissioned and paid – by someone who is, in turn, hired and paid to do the commissioning and editing. This is not to say that a blogged guide can’t be better than one in a newspaper – often it can – but that when a commissioned journalist has had a guide accepted and edited, more checks and balances are in place.
Not bad for a blog
It was telling that when I Tweeted criticising this article, I was told by someone whose views I respect that I was being a bit harsh. My correspondent said that it wasn’t too bad ‘for a blog post’, although obviously it was unacceptably poor as a commissioned article.
My response was “Why should there be any difference?” Why shouldn’t a guide be exacted to the same scrutiny whether published on a blog, in a newspaper or in a book?
How to repair a Yamaha FJR1300A
Alas, everyone can blog, whether they know what they’re talking about. I could make my next blog post an 800-word guide to repairing a Yamaha FJR1300A motorbike if I wanted to. That I don’t know what I’m talking about is irrelevant – I CAN do it.
The web is full of people writing things because they can and they’re entitled too. Little thought is paid to whether they should do so or can genuinely offer a useful slant/ insight. And this is the stumbling block that all good bloggers face – your work and medium is denigrated by the millions who don’t know when to shut up.
Tags: blogging, budget travel, online travel, PR, travel media, Travel Writing, Twitter
Tenerife visit
I’ve just got back from Tenerife (in summary: amazing volcano, not so lovely coastal overdevelopment), and whilst there I was staying in the five star Hotel La Plantacion Del Sur.
Good, but…
The hotel was, on the whole, very. Great food, wonderful sea views, excellent array of pools. But you don’t care about any of that when you’re about to go to bed… And La Plantacion has one of the worst light switch safaris that I have ever come across.
World’s longest light switch safari?
The light switch safari is a bit of a bugbear of mine. It’s mildly annoying to have to switch off one or two lights before bed – but having to trawl around the room trying to switch off multiple lights is a total nuisance.
Crystal Maze
La Plantacion, incredibly, had 23 separate light switches within the room. Twenty bloody three. Eight of these were by the bed, and the others were spread around indiscriminately to ensure a Crystal Maze-style battle when it comes to turning them off. Getting them all to the off setting without resorting to yanking the keycard out of the box is quite a challenge.
Bad design
I’m sure the hotel sees this as a stylish selling point. It is not: it is an utter pain in the backside. No room needs that many light switches. And if someone has to explain to you how the lights work, then the designer has got things badly wrong.
Hotels – as designed by Baz Luhrmann
La Plantacion’s light switch safari is a classic case of when showing off becomes counter-productive. It’s the equivalent of a Baz Luhrmann film – good plot ruined by inability to rein in self-indulgent artistic flourishes. Sometimes a little practicality goes a long way.
So, to anyone considering running a hotel, ask yourself one question before starting off: In putting in something that looks nice, am I going to irritate my guests?
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