keep well clear of the candid camera

Television viewers who watched the programme Hotel on BBC1 last Tuesday night were treated to a gripping fly-on-the-wall documentary about the Britannia Adelphi in Liverpool.

It was the first of an eight-part series and showed how the hotel coped during this year's Grand National weekend when racing was abandoned because of an IRA bomb threat.

The staff, led by manager Eileen Downey, coped wonderfully well with guests returning early, others with no accommodation looking for a bed for the night and a host of other problems that made the busiest night of the year almost unbearable.

In response to demand, the staff put up beds in banqueting and meeting rooms, charging a healthy but respectable £45 a head, including breakfast and use of the health facilities. Guests, including jockeys, who had to leave all belongings at Aintree racecourse, were provided with the bare essentials such as toothbrushes to keep them going.

Unfortunately, two unsavoury moments in an otherwise exemplary performance let the hotel down and cast the whole industry in a bad light.

The first concerned a couple who wanted to check out because they had managed to arrange an early flight home - they understandably had no wish to stay in Liverpool in the circumstances.

But the hotel insisted on charging the full rate for the room, despite the fact that the staff knew they could fill every room three times over. An administration fee might have been in order but charging the rack rate, in full view of the television cameras, was plain stupid.

The second incident came later in the evening when one room that had become available was auctioned off to a desperate visitor.

In the end he was forced to pay £199 for a room with a single occupancy rack rate of £95.

Possibly it was the same room that the previous couple had already paid £140 for, the rack rate for a double, making a total income for one room of £339. But whichever room he got, again the hotel looked to be profiteering out of a desperate situation.

At the very least Britannia Hotels ought to look again at its policy in these situations. Perhaps it doesn't have a clear policy, in which case it should create one.

There are lessons for the industry from this programme, but perhaps the biggest lesson of all is to steer well clear of fly-on-the-wall documentaries, which will always home in on the extreme and the negative. You have been warned!

Gary Crossley

Group Editor

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