Hotels vary wildly in their standards and even the hotels with a 5* rating are not guaranteed to be much better than a 3* budget hotel. Because of this, most people read traveller reviews before they make a booking. It is a good way of weeding out the poor performers before you hand over your hard earned cash on a four-day mini break to Barcelona. So what are the main reasons why people leave awful reviews on sites such as Trip Advisor?

1. Sub-Standard Bedrooms

Although you may not be planning on spending a huge amount of time in your hotel room, it helps if the time you do spend in it is comfortable. At the very least you should expect to find a comfortable, clean bed, a few drawers and a wardrobe, and a television. You may also have a kettle and tea/coffee making facilities, hair dryer and other useful gadgets. What you shouldn’t see are cobwebs, dust, unpleasant stains on the bed, and any other unmentionables.

2. Unclean Bathrooms

Bathrooms are another area of discontent in hotel reviews. Mouldy shower curtains, grubby baths, unclean, stained toilet bowls, broken toilet seats, cracked mirrors, dirty grout between tiles—you name it, they are all to be found in some hotels. Many hotel bathrooms have seen much better days, so it is hardly surprising that guests are quick to complain when the facilities don’t reach their expectations.

3. Poor Service

Service is just as important as clean facilities. Nobody wants to be served by rude staff and that kind of attitude is guaranteed to ensure a bad rating at the end of the stay. From the moment a guest checks in at the reception, they should be made to feel welcome rather than an inconvenience. The same applies if they have a problem at any point during their stay—staff should be helpful and accommodating at all times.

4. Dodgy Food

There is nothing worse than spending a fortune on a break in a luxurious hotel, only to find that the food is inedible, or it tasted great but you are now bedridden with a dose of salmonella food poisoning. Either way food is often a major gripe. Sub-standard, badly cooked food can make the difference between a nice stay and an awful one. Unfortunately, this one often goes hand in hand with bad service, so not only do guests end up waiting for their food for hours but when it does finally show up, it is cold and unappetising.

5. Excessive Noise

Unless you are a party animal, you probably don’t want to be woken up at 4AM by other guests stumbling down the corridor outside your room, singing and shouting. The same applies to traffic noise or building work outside. This type of experience will hardly put you in a happy frame of mind when the time comes to write a review.

Don’t let bad reviews ruin your hotel’s reputation—ensure guests are able to enjoy hygienic bathrooms with Proclad panels installed in the shower areas. Add in some excellent service and they will definitely want to come back next year.