Britannia Hotels has been rated the worst hotel chain in the UK for the seventh year in a row – on average with guests 10 times more likely to award it a poor rating for cleanliness than any other hotel, according to a survey by Which? Travel.
The research, which includes over 40 well-known hotel chains, asked more than 8,000 hotel guests to rate everything from bed comfort to value for money as well as the quality of food and overall cleanliness.
Guests gave Britannia, which has 61 hotels across the UK, a string of one-star ratings in almost every category including value for money and food and drink – with a woeful score of only 39 per cent.
Cleanliness proved to be a particularly sore point with guests repeatedly using words such as ‘filthy’, ‘dreadful’ and ‘scruffy’. On average guests were 10 times (31%) more likely to rate Britannia poorly in this category than across almost all the other hotel chains (3%).
In fact, when a Which? investigator checked in to the Britannia Lodge at Gatwick (pictured), they were greeted with ‘damp smells’ emanating from a clogged ventilation fan and a ‘grubby’ bathtub.
Even worse, an ultraviolet light showed up stains that could not be seen with the naked eye, on both the bed sheets and the walls surrounding the toilet.
Little wonder then that one guest told Which? that the chain’s hotels ‘should all be closed down for the safety of the people who have the misfortune of staying in one’.
Rory Boland, Which? Travel Editor, said, “There really is no excuse for the grubby bathtubs and filthy rooms that we have seen year after year with Britannia so it is best to avoid them completely and go almost anywhere else.'
For details on the other hotels on the list, go to Caterlyst's Sector tab, choose Accommodation then hit the News rollover in the right hand column.