No pride?

So we recently went to the Hamilton area to visit with family, and to be able to enjoy the stay and not feel rushed to get back to the park and the three hour drive at night we decided to spend an evening at one of the local hotels. Now we don’t think lightly the expenditure a room for the night with all the taxes was very close to $150, this is a reasonably new hotel six floors, a couple of chain restaurants, close to a Walmart and shopping plaza.

We were treated to a sixth floor room with a view of Lake Ontario and the sky line of Toronto, which the desk clerk was very proud of, having lived and worked in the area for years, while nice was not as big of deal as he had probably hoped. And because after checking in we experienced multiple rolling thunder heads at times so we barely able to see the major highway that also was just outside of the window … funny how that wasn’t mentioned.

While this area on the border of Hamilton and Stoney Creek, and used to be a heavily Italian influenced area, now as Trontonians are being forced to look outside of metropolitan Toronto area to find more affordable housing, it has became a more heavily East Indian influenced area with most of the local stores as well as the Hotel being staffed by many local East Indians. Why I mention this is because in the couple of decades or so since we lived and worked in this area, it was truly amazing how the area has changed. But I’m obviously getting off topic with this observation, as it was the condition of this reasonably new hotel with multiple missing and broken items that was the trigger this blog. None of the issues would have taken more that ten minutes to repair all of them, so why doesn’t happen, that’s why I called it no pride either at the management level or the staff either housekeeping or maintenance just didn’t seem to care enough.

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So a soap dish in the shower – missing, the door stopper – missing, the window lock – broken and just hanging there, and of course one of the two elevators was not working, the repair truck was there the day we arrived and was back when we checked out and the second elevator seemed to at least be lit up at checkout.

None of the issues were earth shattering, but the soap dish which is a poor design anyway, it is the only place in the shower to put your soap or shampoo other than the floor. The door stopper only protects the wall from the door knob when the door is opened too far, and the window lock not a real issue on the sixth floor, more a cosmetic issue just left hanging there. The most annoying was the elevator, with social distancing and Hamilton’s new mask rules, the elevator was a one family at a time or a single person at a time, so at check out time there were people waiting on almost every floor to escape the hotel. Like I said nothing earth shattering, just some what annoying, but we look at everything with a critical eye because it’s those little thing that turn people away from a revisit, and in a climate of recovery after the pandemic why would you give anyone a reason to not return?

One of the most disheartening things, this is a Canadian based hotel chain, and at a time when we are trying to support local and Canadian it is a truly difficult pill to swallow.

This is an actual post from their website: Sandman Hotel Group is Canada’s fastest-growing, privately-owned hospitality company. A Canadian success story, we are continually refining our guest experience, finding new cities to call home, and we’re always on the move! By choosing Sandman Hotels, Resorts, Inns, Suites, or one of our premium Signature locations, you are guaranteed the extra measure of quality, comfort, and personal convenience you are looking for. Sandman Hotel Group proudly owns and operates 56 hotels in 4 countries with 51 locations across Canada, 3 in the UK, 1 in Ireland, and our first US location in Plano, Texas.

We will contact the company to forward our concerns, as minor as they are because that the proper thing to do, because I’m pretty sure someone will not be pleased at the head office, and as a previous business owner we had to rely on staff to do the little thing to make us great, and if they missed the mark it was always our customers that were the final quality control … and usually let us know about our short comings in great detail … just saying