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‘I know one my colleagues gave up guiding because she could not handle these hotel check-ins and complaints any longer. She really had enough. Not of guiding per se, but this particular aspect: check-ins in these awful hotels!
‘Not just in the Highlands but in the cities too. Some hotels you just waited at reception for customers to turn up and complain. To sort it all out could take half an hour or more. We all remember, the shower curtains that wrapped themselves around you, if there was a shower! Not many then, most hotels had these “shower attachments” that you could attach to the hot and cold tap in the bathtub and have something like a shower. A particular hotel started charging £5 deposit for these!! I did not know about this until the teenage daughter of a family came laughing and giggling to dinner and told everyone about the £5 deposit. “What do they think? That we take these home as souvenirs of Scotland?”. There was great hilarity and the girl could not stop giggling. The next day she confessed that she actually had put the shower attachment in her suitcase as a souvenir.
‘One of the worst experiences was what I later called the “musical chair” event. Complainant 1, got another room, complainant 2, got another room, complainant 3, got another room. At some point I literally gave up, there were no rooms left. At dinner a client told me he was now in room no 3 and was happy and I thought to myself but complainant 1 was there originally...then another customer arrives red in the face with anger and said he is in room no 10 which was given to him as an upgrade and he can pull up the whole toilet seat from its base!. The bathrooms were always a particular problems for and the separate hot and cold taps of course were for ever a source of laughter.
‘And another really really bad experience: the room I was allocated to was really smelly, musky, damp and I was not prepared to stay. I hardly ever asked for another room, I never complained however bad they were. Well of course I complained but never asked for another room for myself. I just cannot stand this musky smell. So I was given another room. This room had not been in use for probably 50 years, the windows were so dirty and full of spiderwebs, and the desk was hm? I took the washcloth from the bathroom and went over the desk for a wipe, the cloth was totally manky. TV did not work, I stood in front of wardrobe mirror which was totally cracked, and then tried another mirror with the radiator next to it. I leaned slightly on the radiator contemplating whether to find a B&B when the radiator came off the wall. I went downstairs thinking of phoning my husband when I heard the kitchenboy crying into the phone complaining about his work.
‘So I went outside and into the next pub and ordered a pint, still thinking about finding a B&B. Decided I couldn’t do that, I am responsible for the group. The dinner menu was horrendous and the food was horrendous and I profusely apologised to the group; I was deadly embarrassed (one had a wasp nest on the ceiling!!) And then one very old lovely man said to me: Ah Frau Welser, don’t worry, we have seen worse, we’ve been through the war! Needless to say that I phoned the agent the following morning threatening that if that hotel was ever on their hotel list again, then I would walk out on the spot, walk out of the tour and never work for them again.
‘Ah, that reminds of another change: with the advent of e-mail, the relationship between travel agent and guide completely changed. There was a loyalty. The agents knew the guides, often personally, knew which guide would be good for a particular group, and they knew the guides’ specialities and preferences. So, when I said above I threatened the agent it meant something then. I was one of their “favourite” guides. In those days, they phoned around to find a guide. And then e-mail arrived. So instead of phoning the guides individually, the e-mail went out to everyone and suddenly it was first comes first serve. I lost a lot then, and a lot of good clients, by the time I read the e-mail the job was allocated. After a year or two with the advent of e-mails this “relationship and trust” between agent and guide was broken, with very very few exceptions.
‘I suppose that one thing has not really changed and that is the guests. People are still people with all their foibles, and they all want to have a good holiday and enjoy themselves and forget the daily grind for a while. I have had so many good experiences, so much laughter and so many gifts and Christmas cards and photos with deep felt thanks. Which is lovely. You know you made someone very happy for a short time, and they will always have
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