This week’s Whine Wednesday is about hotels that still use old, outdated Covid preventive measures at their outlets such as the hotel restaurants that annoy the guests.
While there might be some local requirements mandated by law in some countries, the majority has now dropped all this yet many hotels haven’t caught on.
Most of the time this is being done on the behest of the hotel management or owner and it’s especially prevalent in Asia where they’re still living in their imaginary Covid bubble that never burst in the past two years.
Many countries have moved on for a long time now. If you go to North America or even Europe things like masks, let alone plastic gloves or temperature checks have disappeared for months, some places even since mid-2021.
This month I visited several hotels in Malaysia and some more in Thailand where unbelievably they still do the whole play.
Disposable plastic gloves at the breakfast buffet, at some places temperature checks at the door, as well as masks wherever you go.
Masks are one thing, but plastic gloves at the buffet? Multiple sets for each guest coming for breakfast?
What annoys me about this is that in Thailand for example there is no such rule that mandates all this, yet many properties claim exactly that. This is a complete lie. Plenty of hotels do not require this and would it be a government regulation you can bet all properties would follow this to the letter.
In the case of Thailand, the government has even dropped the outdoor mask requirement as of last week and as far as f&b outlets went, things have been loosened up for quite a while now. You definitely don’t have to wear plastic gloves per government mandate.
There are still nightclub venues in Bangkok where they require you to take an Antigen test before being allowed in which is more a preventive measure to make bad headlines in the news rather than something the government requires. It’s an owner-based policy and completely voluntary if the business requires this or not.
Malaysia was one of the worst experiences as far as the PPE stuff at hotels is concerned and Korea wasn’t far behind.
It’s really interesting to see how countries throughout the world are handling the case but the more entities like hotel managers and owners keep pushing this, the less attractive hotel stays become.
Conclusion
Some hotels are still requiring guests to do an entire PPE dance for example when going to the breakfast buffet. Plastic gloves, masks, and large plastic screens in front of the food. All of this is very punitive and outdated given how far the world has come since all this started in 2020.
I prefer to frequent properties that go with the time. We’re in much better shape now than two years ago and this should be reflected in the policies hotels establish for the guests. There’s nothing you can do if local law requires you to do things but to keep pushing this voluntarily has nothing to do with hospitality.
