Hotels on Windermere

I have got in trouble recently by suggesting that nearly all Lake District Hotels on Windermere are verging on mediocre! In an other article I wrote about how there are so few accommodation providers giving exceptional service to the thousands of visitors that travel large distances to the Lake District every week.

Needless to say it didn’t go down too well!

You may think that this is a rather broad brush considering how many Lake District Hotels there are on Windermere. The truth is that the systems for checking the quality of hotels and their service are all too easily side lined by the testers themselves. An assessment of a hotel’s quality is a combination of facts and subjective opinion and so it is always subject to the variances in quality assessors on the day they arrive.

I am a world wide traveler and I have the benefit of a benevolent employer who always accommodates me in either 4 or 5 star hotels throughout the world. Although my employer picks up the tab, the room rates for each of the hotels I visit are always available to view. If one compares these prices to those hotels on Windermere that profess to be in the same league then it is obvious to see that these hotels wish to be in the same competition.

So let’s take an example: The Shangri La Hotel in Hong Kong is a fantastic example of a genuine 5 star property. The Lake District hoteliers must remember that they are in the same international market for guests.

Phew! You must be joking! Can you seriously compare the Shangri La Hotel in Hong Kong, for example, with The Old England Hotel in Windermere? Not really.

When did you last arrive at a hotel in The Lake District and the door was held open for you by a willing bell hop? I would say never, well never in that last 15 years at least. Labour is cheap in Asia you might cry. Yes, but the rack rates in the Lake District Hotels on Windermere easily exceed some equivalent hotels in Asia.

It would be possible to continue to point out how just ‘not quite there’ so many Lake District Hotels on Windermere are, but negativity won’t get us any where. So what is the answer to this conundrum.

It is a little fantastical to suggest that all the hoteliers in The Lake District should be flown to Hong Kong to examine how the really classy hotels operate. No, the answer lies in a more robust quality system. The problem is that although a huge proportion of visitors to the Lake District come from countries where this sort of shabbiness is unacceptable, the British hotelier has a different set of standards that are just too low.

The answer is to beef up the quality system and set our exceptional hotels up in lights way ahead of the mediocrity. By leading by example the other hotels will have to follow by raising their standards and efficiency if they are to do it without impacting on their room rates.

Eldred Curwen is an International Airline Pilot and a commentator on the Lake District. His criticism of the Hotels on Windermere in the Lake District is one of observation. Having lived in The Lake District for 40+ years he is pleased to spend his free time promoting some of the most beautiful parts of England. Specifically The Lake District.