England is losing out on precious tourism money due to high prices and bad service, according to a Mail Online article. No shocker there — who wants to pay a premium for a hotel that treats its guest like Dickensian orphans. Christopher Rodrigues, chairman of Visit Britain said, "Threadbare towels, a previously owned bar of soap and a grumpy person who says: 'We don't do breakfast before 8am and we don't do it after 8:12am' - you don't get a lot of happy customers." True, but what's England going to do about it? You can't tell hotels to be nicer and expect them to listen.
We spent five nights in a London hotel once, and our experience was predictably awful. Our room was little more than an attic with a small bed and a bathroom. The ceiling sloped so drastically, we had to be on all fours to reach the bed. It was easily 20 degrees hotter inside the room, on account of it being an attic with poor air circulation. It was strange having to open a window on a 90 degree day in order to cool the room down. For the money we spent there, we could have stayed at a much nicer hotel in New York, and actually enjoyed our vacation.
We don't expect British hospitality attitudes to change anytime soon, so if you plan on visiting, be prepared for the onslaught.