Grumpy British hotel staff deterring visitors

by Dave Keating | January 8, 2009 at 04:58 am

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The UK's tourism boss has said that poor service at UK hotels is discouraging people from visiting Britain, at a time when the country vitally needs tourism money. The British pound has collapsed to unprecedented lows, and the one bright spot to this is that it could attract more foreign visitors to the UK, particularly from the US, who have been priced out of UK visits for some time because of the high value of the pound.

LONDON (Reuters) - Grumpy staff and poor value still blight British hotels, deterring foreign visitors when the economy needs them most, the government's tourism boss was quoted as saying on Thursday.

The fall in the value of sterling against the euro and U.S. dollar should make holidays in Britain attractive to foreigners, but a failure to provide basic services such as soft towels and fresh bars of soap may keep visitors away, said Christopher Rodrigues, chairman of VisitBritain.

Earnings could fall by 4 billion pounds, leading to the loss of up to 50,000 jobs this year unless standards are raised, he told The Independent.

"We've had a period in which people could get away with not being of the highest quality," he was quoted as saying.