Christopher Rodrigues, head honcho of Visit Britain, says that British hotel staff are grumpy and surly, and offer shoddy service to tourists, which he says could cost up to 50,000 jobs in hotels and restaurants because foreign visitors to Britain are put off by poor service and high prices.

In an interview to the Independent (H/T Guardian), Rodrigues said that “Poor value for money and poor service costs jobs and will cost more jobs in a recession. Threadbare towels, a previously-owned bar of soap and a grumpy person who says ‘We don’t do breakfast before 8am and we don’t do it after 8.12am’ – you don’t get a lot of happy customers.”

Throw in the dreary weather, appalling food, incomprehensible slang, and snarky humor, and you could soon be looking at a tourist-free Britain. Maybe you could use that to bring in some tourists. You know, like they advertise tourist free beaches to tourists….

Since we’re on your case, could you please explain why on earth someone would name a town as Penistown? Or Crapstone? How about Ugley, Essex; East Breast, western Scotland; North Piddle, Worcestershire; and Spanker Lane, Derbyshire.

But wait. It gets better - Crotch Crescent, Oxford; Titty Ho, Northamptonshire; Wetwang, East Yorkshire; Slutshole Lane, Norfolk; and Thong, Kent.

And then some - Pratts Bottom, Kent; Tumbledown Dick Road, Oxfordshire; Butt Hole Road, South Yorkshire. Photo by David Locke1 via flickr (creative commons).

What Britain needs is some collective national therapy to rid you of this fatal cynicism and dirty humor which infests everything you do or say. What say you make it mandatory for everyone between the ages of 5-55 to watch every episode of Oprah?

Posted on January 27th, 2009 by Thomas
Filed under: Hotels, World