Thailand Tops List Of Dirtiest Hotels In Asia

[scania]

Do you get a trophy?

A big golden cockroach?

HAHAHAHAHA good one

[phetaroi]

The problem with this news article is the title. I really doesn't mean that "Thailand tops list of dirtiest hotels in Asia"...what it really means is A HOTEL IN THAILAND TOPS THE LIST OF ASIA'S DIRTIEST HOTELS. Totally different meaning. And, the article is written very poorly.

Having said that, I often use and post to that particular organization (TripAdvisor) and their traveler reviews are excellent. I have rarely found them to be very far off the mark.

and your variant should read 'an hotel' but then i'm old fashioned and i agree the article is very poorly written.

Give me a break. I'm writing a quick response on a pop forum. The original article was written by a professional for publication. When I write formally I do spell check and sometimes grammar check. And since you want to make a point of writing skills, it's not "i'm" and "i", it's "I'm" and "I". Perhaps you're not old-fashioned enough. Oh yes, and note the correct form for old-fashioned.

[phetaroi]

Does Asia include "central" Asia? If so, I'd like to propose they reexamine the Tashkent Hotel. A big, major hotel in that city. The first night I slept sitting up in a chair rather than trust the crunchy sheets. And, I'd swear the bottled water had been refilled. The second night, I found a guest house. And at the guest house, the "floor monitor" didn't knock on my door soliciting for a hooker.

You and others don't understand how Trip Advisor works. They do not send people out to check hotels. They rely 100% on guest reviews.

[phetaroi]

On the other hand, sometimes the reviews on TA are just unfair. One example: Whenever I stay in Paris I stay in a very nice small hotel run by a pleasant couple. This hotel has a poor average on Tripadvisor owing to one American reviewer who gave it a rating of zero.

Reason: "We bought sodas on our way back to the hotel and we asked for ice. Unbelieveably they had no ice machine. They had to go to their kitchen and get some ice from there and could only manage a pathetic 4 cubes". Result zero rating.

What a dick.

Yes, you're correct about this aspect of Trip Advisor, but that's the value of reading multiple reviews...you usually get a sense of fairness.

I'll be honest, there was a hotel in a somewhat remote area of Utah in which I stayed that I might be guilty of giving an unfair review of. It was actually a decent little place, very clean, nothing to complain about. Except that because they had one tennis court, they listed themselves as a "resort" -- and charged correspondingly -- even though they were just a motel with a typical motel restaurant.

[CLOD]

First time I ever came to Thailand I flew into bkk at 3am from singapore.

Got a taxi who took me to the MEMPHIS hotel just off sukumvit, near the Landmark.

What a shithole, and no sooner had I registered, the bellboy was wanting to know if i wanted a girl.

[phetaroi]

Don't believe all bad reviews you read at TripAdvisor. They can be stacks of lies placed by competitors, people who for various reasons are unhappy with the hotel's existence or actual visitors not happy about having to pay for a broken item or something of that nature. Let's face it: not all guests are nice people in the same way as not all people are nice and hotels have little choice on who do they host.

I'm stating this from my first-had experience running a hospitality business here, striving to provide the very best of value and service to our guests but being subjected on one occasion to a vicious slander attack on the TripAvisor. TripAdvisor is a site strongly biased towards people who place comments there. Their rules are very different to reviewers and to the managers who respond not to mention that they are not in a position to verify the truth of the comments they publish.

So in other words you're saying that the people on TA who send in their reviews are just about as dishonest as you people in the hospitality industry with your advertising?

Cause I gotta tell you, that I have rarely -- if ever -- stayed at a hotel that really looked like the photos on your websites...photos that are taken by professionals with special lighting and often digitally remastered and include features that don't necessarily exist in all the rooms, and show only the rooms in the top wing...not the old "wing". And the prose on your websites is so full of crapola. And the service and cleanliness rarely match the way those things are described on your websites. And your websites fail to say things like, "But our hotel is undergoing a complete renovation, so your stay will be incredibly noisy, dusty, some of our restaurants will be closed, the business center is not operating, and parking is temporarily off-site about a half-mile away. But, we will still charge you our typically inflated full prices."

[brahmburgers]

I have stayed in a few higher-end hotels in Thailand which have a common problem of mold in the building air conditioning so the whole building stinks of mold. This is really nasty. I would prefer a cheap tatty place which was reasonably clean to a room in a place with this problem.

I think this is quite a common problem in Thailand with the humid air which causes constant dampness in the ducting. Even some shopping malls have the problem. Central Lad Phrao used to suffer from this many years ago until they refurbished the place.

The cost for a decent hotel in Thailand is reasonable compared to the region but I can say that anything sub 1500 baht is not worth staying at, IMO.

Well, I don't think we'd make very good travel companions. Admittedly, I'm a cheapskate, but I've found many v. decent guest house places for between 150 and 250 per night within Thailand. On the other hand, sometimes I've had to stay in upper end hotels and frankly, I prefer the funky little guest houses for 1/10th the price. Main reasons:

Cheapo places usually.....

>>>> don't have carpets which store mold

>>>> the staff are more casual and it's easier to be natural and easy-going

>>>> have more window to room ratio, and usually better, more natural views

>>>> don't have sheets and pillowcases which are processed with strange chemicals (formaldihyde anyone?).

>>>> have windows with screens

>>>> don't have long dark hallways, and a five to ten minute negotiation to get outside the place.

>>>> have low priced meals in a casual setting.

>>>> Generally have healthier options on the menu, such as big fruit salads. And are open to guests suggesting variations of set menu meals.

It's rather like the strange phenomena re; real estate values that generally goes like this: The worse the living environment the higher the real estate values. If in doubt, go and compare prices for properties in polluted inner cities with prices for similar sized properties at a clean rural settings.

[craigt3365]

This article does NOT single out Thailand. It is just showing the worst rated hotels according to travelers reviews. Many of you are reading too much into the article. It doesn't say expensive hotels are better than cheap, it doesn't say all of Thailand is terrible. Just lists the hotels with the worst reviews. Period. And of course it doesn't cover all hotels because it only lists those reviewed by a traveler. I have added several hotels that were not in their system, but should have been.

I use TA all the time. It is hit and miss...but if there have been quite a few reviews, you can generally get a good idea of what the hotel will be like. Some of the reviews are right on...others are way off the mark as the reviewer got pissed off at some small little thing and decided to trash the hotel. Others are clearly posts by the owners trying to pump the place up. I have posted quite a few reviews of my own. It is a great website to use if you are a frequent traveler. They have other sections also and they are great if you are trying to get info on a particular region within a country. Much more specific than sites like Lonely Planet. Plus LP is more oriented towards the backpack crowd.

[geriatrickid]

TA's reviews of Thai hotels tend to be a lot more positive than they are with EU and North American hotels. If some place in Thailand gets consistently savaged in Trip Adviser, it is probably well deserved.

TA provides a general idea, not a definitive statement. If I see a consistently negative assessment, I give the hotel a pass. However, more often than not, the reviews encourage me to consider a hotel. It's the candid photos, the hints that are most useful. I have read alot of the Thai hotel reviews particularly the Phuket reviews and I believe that alot of them are accurate. If you look at the reviews, the Mariott & Holiday Inn in Patong get consistently good reviews and they really are decent hotels. I consider the Patong Resort Hotel to be a dump and well past its prime. Yet, most of the reviews take into consideration it is a package tour kind of place and call it good value etc. The reviews for places like the Arcadia in Karon, Central Resorts, the Dusit Laguna, Banyan, Sheraton etc. are all fair assessments and are usually positive. The negative reviews of hotels in Patong really do reflect the quality of the hotels.

[grumpyoldman]

Phi Phi Don Chukit is just a microcosm of Phi Phi Don Village itself. What a dump!

Many more disgusting hotels there that could make this list, scheit stream running right through with noxious fumes that killed people last year, whole place needs to be knocked down and rebuilt.

[brahmburgers]

Phi Phi Don Chukit is just a microcosm of Phi Phi Don Village itself. What a dump!

Many more disgusting hotels there that could make this list, scheit stream running right through with noxious fumes that killed people last year, whole place needs to be knocked down and rebuilt.

I agree, up until the last word. Phi Phi is too small to support gobs of people. Perhaps a few substinance fishing families, that's about it. The place should be cleaned of all traces of human trashiness (as much as possible) and declared off limits to overnighters, and made available only as a place for brief day trips and picnics, though even picnics can be troublesome, the way Thais leave trash everywhere.

It might take 30 to 60 years before TAT realizes that setting aside truly natural places will prove to be more of a boon to tourism than resorts and golf courses. Look at tourist numbers at Galapados (Ecuador) or wilderness areas in the US, or swimming with the dolphin type activities in Hawaii, or Komono dragon fans. There's a whole lot of value (for tourism and for other species) in having natural preserves. Thai officials will claim either (A) it's not possible, as every rai in Thailand is already occupied. and/or ( it's always better to build resorts, and/or © what's the use of natural places, aren't there enough songbirds outside?

Let's educate our youngsters on the advantages of preserving habitat - not just for Man (Homo Trashitus), but for the glory of all other species, and maybe things will get better, a few generations from now.

Right now I'm raising turtles, not to eat, but to release in the wild. I've been all over the countriside, but I honestly can't think of one place to release them where they'll be safe for awhile. People are everywhere. As soon as one person finds where some turtles are, his family and/or the entire village will be there in an hour to decimate the entire bunch for food. Same goes for any other species that can be injested. Heck, they're even nets strung through the countryside for catching song birds. Granted, they probably don't eat them, but they sell them to Buddhists to 'gain merit.' What's done with the birds that don't sell? I'm a Buddhist, but I think it's sick to catch birds for the purpose of selling them to make superstitious people feel better about themselves.

There, I feel better now, having let out a rant.

[notime]

Don't believe all bad reviews you read at TripAdvisor. They can be stacks of lies placed by competitors, people who for various reasons are unhappy with the hotel's existence or actual visitors not happy about having to pay for a broken item or something of that nature. Let's face it: not all guests are nice people in the same way as not all people are nice and hotels have little choice on who do they host.

I'm stating this from my first-had experience running a hospitality business here, striving to provide the very best of value and service to our guests but being subjected on one occasion to a vicious slander attack on the TripAvisor. TripAdvisor is a site strongly biased towards people who place comments there. Their rules are very different to reviewers and to the managers who respond not to mention that they are not in a position to verify the truth of the comments they publish.

So in other words you're saying that the people on TA who send in their reviews are just about as dishonest as you people in the hospitality industry with your advertising?

Cause I gotta tell you, that I have rarely -- if ever -- stayed at a hotel that really looked like the photos on your websites...photos that are taken by professionals with special lighting and often digitally remastered and include features that don't necessarily exist in all the rooms, and show only the rooms in the top wing...not the old "wing". And the prose on your websites is so full of crapola. And the service and cleanliness rarely match the way those things are described on your websites. And your websites fail to say things like, "But our hotel is undergoing a complete renovation, so your stay will be incredibly noisy, dusty, some of our restaurants will be closed, the business center is not operating, and parking is temporarily off-site about a half-mile away. But, we will still charge you our typically inflated full prices."

I understand your anger at misleading or false advertising and I don't defend this. But the practice is not a domain of hospitality industry only. Look at all the products that don't work as advertised. Look at all the crap we buy at "... Pro" shops that fall apart within days of purchase. What I stated is that not ALL reviews are fair because reviewers not unlike service/goods providers are also humans with thier capacity for crappy behaviour and for telling lies to achieve their goals. One of the other posters above illustrated exactly what I had in mind with a particular example.

I also don't say that all reviews on the TripAdvisor are incorrect or that the site is worthless. Just that the site has different rules for reviewers and for respondents which indicate lack of integrity and bias. The other questionable practice is that to place a review there one must be a TripAdvisor member. Not all guests feel comfortable with subscribing to some site just to place a comment about their stay. It is therefore that I never referred our guests to that website until one family all placed 5 damming reviews about our place as a revenge for switching off their air-con when they were at the beach for most of the day. Since then I do refer our guests to TripAdvisor and our ranking is slowly improving since we usually get 5 out of 5 stars for our premises, value and service :-)

[jitenshaman]

usually thai hotels are the best in terms of pricing, services and cleanness compare to the hotels in the US and UK. with these price range, it is impossible to stay in any hotel in the western world.

this is a confusing article and it has nothing to do with other hotels in Thailand.

Exactly - You can't even stay in a hotel in the USA.

If you can afford to stay in a hotel

in USA then your making enough money to rent or buy a used motorhome.

I don't see the famous 300 baht rooms in

Thailand much any more but you can probably still

find them in rural towns. Comparing a few run down hotels

in all of Thailand compared to 1000's and 1000's of

all the hotels makes no sense. The article is a waist of time.

Price is all that matters and you can look and see the joint when you

first walk in and then turn around and walk out.

i did an update on a guidebook to Isaan last year and stayed in a lot of places for 250-400 baht, all with hot water, cable tv, aircon, clean, great staff, in Udon, Ubon, Buriram, Si Saket, Khon Kaen, and elsewhere...interestingly enough, sometimes my choices were far cleaner and better looking than some of the top rural capital hotels i reviewed (2000 baht plus a night).

[fishhooks]

"no sooner had I registered, the bellboy was wanting to know if i wanted a girl" CLOD

Wow CLOD! What a terrible surprise.

I hope you checked out without delay and headed to the safety of your home?

[Ulysses G.]

usually thai hotels are the best in terms of pricing, services and cleanness compare to the hotels in the US and UK. with these price range, it is impossible to stay in any hotel in the western world.

this is a confusing article and it has nothing to do with other hotels in Thailand.

Very true. The hotels in Manilla are mostly terrible and expensive to top it off. This artice is abunch of <deleted>!

[Bagwan]

All this moaning and groaning! Some of you don't know when you are well off. You should try the Bates Motel. That'll change your perspective.

[mommysboy]

Interesting I read a similar report this week that covered Europe where eight out of the ten worst hotels were in the UK, must see if I can't find it again and post it here, the hotel that was unanimously declared the worst sounded far worse than anything I've ever seen in Thailand!

Same old ChiangMai. What a bore! What a traitor!

[christcourt]

I wouldn't say they were the worst, but they're certainly the noisiest. If more attention was paid to sound-proofing they'd go up in my estimation. This also applies to condos.

Sorry! I'll be more quiet next time !!!

[MAJIC]

I'm sorry what is going on here? The report does not state that the hotels in Thailand are this or that! It simply states that the hotels in question were voted or commented on by visitors to these specific hotels.

As for the comment "A lot of these are the sort of budget travelers that are partaking in these online feedback forums". What the heck does that mean? Pompous oaf! All travellers have equal rights to complain of bad service. I have stayed in hotels all over the world and you can find good and bad at all price levels.

These surveys and league tables prove nothing unless compared like for like including prices.

At the end of the day you get what you pay for and Thailand has good value Hotels to suit all pockets.

[mommysboy]

I'm sorry what is going on here? The report does not state that the hotels in Thailand are this or that! It simply states that the hotels in question were voted or commented on by visitors to these specific hotels.

As for the comment "A lot of these are the sort of budget travelers that are partaking in these online feedback forums". What the heck does that mean? Pompous oaf! All travellers have equal rights to complain of bad service. I have stayed in hotels all over the world and you can find good and bad at all price levels.

These surveys and league tables prove nothing unless compared like for like including prices.

At the end of the day you get what you pay for and Thailand has good value Hotels to suit all pockets.

Certainly good at the low end, but at the top end! not so sure at all.

[tranquillize]

I stayed in a hotel in Malaysia once. I could hear rats crawling around the room and going through the garbage at night. Needless to say i didn't sleep well there!

[hanssna]

why didn't i get the first price ? you should see my hotel !

[Roachiebkk]

usually thai hotels are the best in terms of pricing, services and cleanness compare to the hotels in the US and UK. with these price range, it is impossible to stay in any hotel in the western world.

this is a confusing article and it has nothing to do with other hotels in Thailand.

Good Comment, I don't get it, everywhere has a best and worst hotel, so why is Thailand singled out...again...anything positive here? Why does big chains like Marriott keep openning up new hotels in Thailand all the time, and so many other new boutique hotels openning by the day? Because Thailand is a dirty place to have hotels?

Ha ha ha! Why do you think they are singling out Thailand? It was a general world review of comments made about hotels. There has to be some hotel in Thailand that has received negative comments and believe me the First Hotel is an exceptionally good candidate for the Golden Cockroach, along with their tuk tuk/taxi mafia outside. Even getting on my motorbike parked outside it the mafia were abusing me because I wouldn't go shopping with them.

[Roachiebkk]

I'm sorry what is going on here? The report does not state that the hotels in Thailand are this or that! It simply states that the hotels in question were voted or commented on by visitors to these specific hotels.

As for the comment "A lot of these are the sort of budget travelers that are partaking in these online feedback forums". What the heck does that mean? Pompous oaf! All travellers have equal rights to complain of bad service. I have stayed in hotels all over the world and you can find good and bad at all price levels.

These surveys and league tables prove nothing unless compared like for like including prices.

At the end of the day you get what you pay for and Thailand has good value Hotels to suit all pockets.

Ah so it costs more to have a filthy room infested with bedbugs and crawling scurrying feet. True people get what they pay for but no excuse for filth and sometime customers have been booked into these places by their travel agent or adventure travel company and don't have the choise to go elsewhere

[keestha]

EVERY hotel will attract both positive and negative feedback at Tripadvisor. You need to be able to read in between the lines a bit. A person who is used to stay in upmarket places, might negatively review a downmarket place, forgetting that you get what you pay for.

I know that my hotel offers a constant level of service and cleanliness, but nevertheless reviews at various websites vary from raving about it to extremely negative.

Anybody can write what he wants. An agorofobic lady gave my hotel a zero for cleanliness, because there was a spider in the room. The staff (myself) got just a rating of 3 on a scale running to 5, though I got up at 3 AM without complaining to hunt down and kill the spider for her.

[rstrauss]

usually thai hotels are the best in terms of pricing, services and cleanness compare to the hotels in the US and UK. with these price range, it is impossible to stay in any hotel in the western world.

this is a confusing article and it has nothing to do with other hotels in Thailand.

Exactly - You can't even stay in a hotel in the USA.

If you can afford to stay in a hotel

in USA then your making enough money to rent or buy a used motorhome.

I don't see the famous 300 baht rooms in

Thailand much any more but you can probably still

find them in rural towns. Comparing a few run down hotels

in all of Thailand compared to 1000's and 1000's of

all the hotels makes no sense. The article is a waist of time.

Price is all that matters and you can look and see the joint when you

first walk in and then turn around and walk out.

I am just back from a 4000km tour in northern Thailand. I never spent more than 500 baht. In Tak is a great hotel, a 300 baht room, big, tidy, warm water, TV, DVD-Player!, Desk and free Internet too. That was the best deal ever in Thailand.

Beside that i find a lot of motels along the bigger roads quite pleasant. Often 250 with fan and 350 with aircon.

[tw25rw]

I can vouch for the Earls Court Gardens Hotel being well worthy of it's spot in the UK list having lived there for nearly 3 months! Far worse than anything I've had in Thailand for less money. Only a hotel in Amsterdam runs it close in my experience.