Ethical Hotels

Most Asian hotels are good to their guests and also to their staff. However a few spoil things by cheating their staff and in doing so actually give guests themselves a raw deal. Often bent hotels are those which are owned by notorious wealthy families such as the Suharto's who most likely paid for the hotel with "blood" or corruption money and even obtained planning permission to build the hotel where they should not; in a conservation area, on land effectively stolen from the original owner by way of "compulsory purchase" orders, by breaking other building codes such as size or proximity to a place of worship. These bad boys of the Asian hotel market regularly cheat their staff by not paying them part or even all of the service charges they collect in their name, because they use this money to increase their own profitability and / or to compete with decent, honest hotels unfairly. Cheating guests by token of not informing them honestly about their hotel and whether they take your money under false pretences.

We do our best to advise you which hotels listed with us perhaps have something to hide. For example, we invite / have invited all the hotels listed on our site to declare whether they give all of the service charge to their staff and fairly; some hotels proportion the percentage they pay according to the person's salary and include directors and / or managers on huge western salaries, which means the lowly actual hotel worker you come to love gets very little as they are on low local rate salaries. We also ask hotels what they are doing for the environment, etc. Of course we can not force hotels to declare what they are doing or even honestly so, but we do try and will take action against any hotel which any of our site's users reports as false; yes, please tell us if you see a statement regarding a hotel on our site which is untrue. If you see a hotel listed on our site which has not declared whether it works ethically or not, you can draw your own conclusions as to why this may be so.

Although this is not directly a hotel ethics issue, it is indirectly. So many 5 star hotels portray this "standard" as an unequivocal statement of the level of luxury at their hotel in comparison with other, lower star or even unrated hotels. The star rating system is widely misused and even abused as the rating is not one of luxury, but a certain number of points on a check list of features such as whether guest rooms have a TV and hairdryer; it does not mean your room electrics will work though! Unfortunately also some countries charge higher levels of tax on a hotel according to their star rating, so many high quality hotels with all the facilities of a 5 star hotel engineer their rating form to be a 3 star hotel which pays less tax. This means many lower star rating or even unrated accommodations are actually more luxurious, often by a long stretch, than so called luxury 5 star hotels; therefore do not be fooled by this often self-serving institutional travel industry myth.

We have encouraged all hotels listed with us for direct reservations to disclose any and all culturally and environmentally practices they employ. For example, where hotels provide free drinking water fountains so you can reuse the small plastic water bottles that are becoming the blight of refuge tips. Where hotels organize their own in-house / bespoke tours for their guests to cultural sites and events to make sure holidaymakers get the best quality and a true flavor of the country, not just sell them 3rd tour operator sardine can specials from which the hotel earns a commission and which mostly do nothing for guest comfort or authenticity. Where hotels work with the local interest groups to ensure their hotel is an asset to the local community, not an unpopular liability.

So much of the travel industry is now purely about questionable marketing. Travel associations that are really sales industry marketing organizations. Brochures both printed and online that paint gloss, not depth. Our belief is the hotel that will give you the best all-round vacation for your dollar is the one built and operated with people in mind (including their own staff) first, profit first. The hotel which is built in harmony with its neighbors, that looks after its staff and environment, plus looks after its guests with acts such as bespoke tours rather than marketing hype is the hotel which will exceed your holiday dreams.

Please also see our page on 100% Legal & Ethical Villas as some of the issues detailed there apply to hotels also.