Mobil Travel Inspectors Guide to Hotels in South Florida: No Stars for You!
“Where is my Lavoris?” the Mobil Travel Guide inspector yelled at the poor, cowering room service attendant.
“Toothbrush, yes?”
“Yes, I see it’s a toothbrush. I know that’s what I asked for. But you should have.” anticipated I want mouthwash too, idiot! There are no stars for you!”
With that pronouncement, the man slammed the door to the hotel room.
If this sounds like an episode of “Fawlty Towers,” then you don’t spend much time in Miami. As the Miami Herald recently reported, our community must once again hang its head in shame: Of all the hotels we own, none are worthy of five stars. Not anticipating mouthwash with a toothbrush request actually helped keep the ultra-expensive Loews Miami Beach from getting a fifth star. Because a lightbulb burned out in a desk lamp in a room at the posh Ritz-Carlton Key Biscayne, it also didn’t get a fifth star. Suggestions for how to get that elusive fifth star include TV commercials reminding all of us who live here to be “more hospitable to visitors” and to hire more workers who speak English because “non-English speakers make customer service customer is an uphill struggle”.
Good luck on both initiatives. When we can’t even be nice to ourselves, how can you expect us to be friendly and helpful to tourists? As for finding more English-speaking workers for the hospitality industry, that will probably never happen until wages rise enough to attract a broader mix of the population. Right now, the hotel industry rests on the shoulders of immigrants willing to work long hours for little pay. So, looking at it from that point of view, it will be a long time before we get that fifth star, so our advice is to put up with our embarrassment and learn to live with it.
To be honest with you, we didn’t know it was okay to be anal about this kind of thing. Since most of the staff have lived here most of their lives, we expected this to be the norm. Those tough Mobile inspectors must be ex-Navy drill instructors. They classify the hotels in 750 criteria. But at least we learned one thing, if you’re not offered a second round at a hotel bar within a minute of finishing your drink, by God, it’s your should Get offended. No tip for you!