Hotel Air Conditioning – How Important Is It to Your Guests?

As hotel guests, one of the biggest bug bears is a lack of, or poor hotel air conditioning. We’ve all been there! It’s a hot summer’s day and you check into our hotel, the reception is cool and we look forward to resting in our hotel room, only to find that when we open the door we’re hit by a wall of heat. Through many surveys and articles on the main customer complaints about hotel rooms, we know hotel air conditioning is one of the top priorities for many hotel guests and one that can make or break a hotel stay.

Hotels that fail to provide quality and efficient air conditioning are often criticised or poorly reviewed through sites like Trip Advisor, Yelp and Kayak which can result in the hotel gaining a bad reputation which in turn may lead to fewer bookings.

In fact a survey by Go Fish Digital found that as many as 22% of customers may go elsewhere if they find just one negative review for a product. This increases to 59.2% when there are three negative reviews and four or more negatives means you are likely to lose 70% of potential customers!

Here are a few of many reviews left by dissatisfied hotel visitors:

Strand Palace Hotel, London - 3*s “I stayed here last weekend and I was highly disappointed. Although it’s a great location and front desk staff are very helpful I was disappointed when we walked into a small room with no AC and no window to open. It was 29 degrees so very hot so as you can imagine our shock when we walked into the room.”

Premier Inn, Sittingbourne Kent – 3*s “Only downside was that the rooms were unbearably hot and there was no air con. This spoiled our trip.”

Central Park Hotel, London – 2*s “The rooms do not have air con so it was hot. They gave us a fan which was nice but we couldn't wait until we got to go outside to the cool” and “The lobby & corridors are air conditioned but not the rooms & when it is warm outside, it is really warm inside.”

Weald of Kent Golf Course & Hotel, Ashford Kent – 2*s “Couldn’t sleep as the room was ridiculously hot. I don’t mean hot as in warm but unbearable. If we hadn’t already paid for the room we would have got a taxi in the middle of the night home. Stayed in the lodge which has no air conditioning wouldn’t stay there again.”

Henry IV, London – 3.3/10 “There was a desk fan in the room, because the aircon had clearly not functioned for a long time!!”

My Palace Hotel, London – 3*s “The hotel was easy to find just the round corner from Earl’s Court station, nice clean room, comfy bed, although was very hot at night only negative thing was no air conditioning so not sure I’d stay here in the summer.”

Travelodge Canterbury Chaucer Central, Canterbury, Kent – 2*s “The only air con in this hotel appears to only be in the reception and bar/restaurant. The corridors and rooms were sweltering hot! One window only opened a tiny amount the other was fixed shut. There was a fan in the room but it didn't do much.”

Why is Good Hotel Air Conditioning Important?

Clearly and understandably air conditioning is important to hotel guests. It plays a vital role in ensuring a guest’s stay is comfortable, especially in very cold and very hot weather. Hotels that do not have air conditioning or who have poorly maintained air conditioning will inevitably suffer from bad reviews.

Synecore’s HVAC Manager, Gary Piper, says: “It is surprising that so many hotels do not provide good air conditioning as a basic service to their guests. Our research has discovered that the main complaints relating to poor air conditioning in hotels are largely due to under maintained systems that don’t perform efficiently. Shockingly, complaints are often ignored, or a fan is provided as an alternative. In these instances, we firmly believe the negative comments are well deserved.”

Creating a Comfortable Temperature in your Hotel

With air conditioning it’s possible to control the temperature throughout your hotel, including the foyer, the bar, restaurant, guest rooms, conference areas and offices etc.

Being able to adjust the air conditioning temperature to suit individual spaces helps hotels keep control of their bills and the temperature in each room ensuring a comfortable space for staff and visitors.

No matter the size of your hotel, whether it’s large with hundreds of rooms or a small boutique B&B there is an air conditioning system for you.

Hotel Air Conditioning Preventative Maintenance

Of course once you have the right air conditioning system it’s vital to keep it maintained, otherwise issues may result in poor performing air conditioning.

Gary Piper from Synecore continues: “Keeping your air conditioning system well maintained is not difficult, especially with Planned Preventative Maintenance Schemes, such as ours, where the air conditioning system is regularly serviced, cleaned, checked for leaks and tested. Most importantly these under-maintained systems could be a sign the hotel is not fulfilling its legal obligations of remaining FGas compliant and they possibly do not hold an up-to-date TM44 assessment.”

“Large air conditioning systems, often found in hotels, must be fitted with leak detection equipment to prevent the release of harmful ozone depleting gases being released into the atmosphere. A poor performing system could be a sign of a leak and it must be rectified immediately, or the hotel could receive significant penalty fines if not addressed.”

Contact Synecore for Your Hotel Air Conditioning Needs

Synecore provides an air conditioning Planned Preventative Maintenance scheme which works to avoid air conditioning breakdowns and faults. However should an issue arise Synecore’s 24/7 emergency call-out service ensures an engineer will be at your hotel to resolve the problem as soon as possible.

Synecore also takes care of F-Gas compliance (which applies to all sizes and types of businesses operating an air conditioning, refrigeration system with the CO2 equivalent charge weight of 5 tonnes and above), including maintaining FGas records and performing TM44 inspections (a legal requirement designed to improve efficiency, reduce energy consumption, operating costs and the carbon emissions of air conditioning systems), to ensure your building holds the correct certifications and to keep you legally compliant with FGas regulation.

Synecore provide air conditioning / HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) to hotels and B&Bs throughout Kent, London and the UK. Contact us today to discuss your requirements and to arrange your free no obligation quote.