10 Stupid Design Mistakes Hotels Keep Making

by Ryan Vagabundo

It might not be surprising that the United States is the country with the most hotels in the world, but it may surprise you to learn how much of a difference there is between first and second place. As it is with military size and power, the US is way ahead of second-place China with 4.9 million hotel rooms in the country to China's 1.5 million. The average hotel size is also around 100 rooms, more than double the size of any other country save China and Turkey.

For the apparent world leader (and most competitive market) in the industry, you would think you would see hotels scrambling to sort themselves out here. Nope. To be fair, they have made recent improvement in some areas - particularly the budget-end chains, which have stepped up significantly to try to compete on value with typically overpriced midscale rooms.

There are a lot of dumb design mistakes that just keep being repeated, however. I think the main issue is that the people who design, build, own and manage these things don't ever actually spend time trying to sleep and work in them.

Whatever the case, these are the 10 worst design mistakes that you keep seeing over and over again in hotels.

10) "Hobbit Height" Shower Heads

I've stayed at many hotels and motels in my time, and I'm always puzzled by the ones that have a shower head that's beneath your head level if you're a six-foot-ish man.

I've had oddball half-baked theories flash across my head about this over the years. Is it because Indians own something like 30% of all the hotels/motels in the US, and/or because Latin American contractors are widely used, and they tend to be shorter than the American average (statistics cited so nobody reeees) so they're installing shower heads to what seems sized right for them? Were the shower heads installed decades ago and we're progressively getting much taller over the generations? Is Danny DeVito secretly running the hotel industry?

I still don't have a firm answer, but I found a Reddit thread that provided some plausible explanations:

• Contractors often install the shower head and plumbing before the tub, and the tub raises the floor by a couple of inches

• It's an intentional move to make the shower less comfortable and save money on water

• It lowers the possibility of water damage to the ceiling and over the curtain from splashing

What's the real answer? I still don't know, but it's probably in there somewhere. As far as height goes, there's no reason to have shower heads set so low. A shorter person can still reach up and adjust the head as needed, but a person who is taller than the head is stuck with a crappy unsatisfying shower.

9) Not Enough Outlets

Some otherwise modern hotels still have that lovely situation where the only outlets in the room are behind the bed, behind a giant heavy wardrobe / set of cabinets + TV stand, and the lone one that is accessible is nowhere near where you need to sit and use your computer.

Even the most difficult situations could be solved by a combination of lamps with outlets in them and power strips. Some hotels are just hardheaded about this, though. I stayed at one this year that had a serious outlet problem that could have easily been solved through the lamps ... but they clearly weren't doing it because they had just invested in Fancy Lamps (without outlets) that matched the room decor and damned if they were going to replace all of those.

Another issue is when they have really old wiring that is just way past needing to be updated, like the older outlets with worn contacts that won't "grip" the two-pronged plugs for your computers and various mobile devices. Those things are actually a fire hazard and really, really need to be replaced. If a lodging is still deferring that sort of maintenance, the whole rest of the operation is real questionable.

8) Quiet Fans / Fan Won't Run Continually

Even nice hotels often have walls that are on the thin side.

A lovely cure for this? White noise.

A lovely source of white noise? The air units installed in just about every room in the developed world.

Unfortunately, I've noticed in the last few years that when hotels and motels install new air units they tend to get ones with very quiet and weak fans. That, and/or the ones that won't run unless the unit is heating or cooling with no "fan only" setting.

Bad move.

The gold standard for the hotel/motel fan, in my opinion, is the classic Motel 6 wall unit ( also found in some other properties ). They are starting to be phased out, but you still see these around. The ones with knob controls, red/blue coloring on the temperature control, and the ability to set it to "low fan" or "high fan." In my opinion, if nothing is wrong with them mechanically these things are the perfect air units.

Fan white noise is the guest's last resort against thin walls and inconsiderate neighbors. Don't take this soothing sound away from us. "Whisper quiet" is not a selling point for fans when it comes to hotels.

On that note, I strongly advise investing in your own portable white noise device for travel.

7) Puzzle Showers

Oh my lord. Why do engineers need to over-complicate things.

Shower water control should be the simplest thing in the world. Turn in one direction for warmer water, the other direction for colder.

For some reason, some architects gotta try to be slick and do too much.

Like, look at this thing, from The D hotel in Vegas.

No indication of what happens when you turn it in what direction. If you turn it too far in the wrong direction the handle actually falls off while the water is running.

Why. Why are you making me solve a Myst puzzle first thing in the morning. Stop it.

6) Heavy Furniture / Comforters

Heavy, plushy furniture and big, thick comforters are hard and expensive to clean.

If something is hard and expensive to clean, 90% of hotels are gonna cut corners and just not do it very often (if ever).

A lot of hotels seem to be catching onto this and have thinner blankets and comforters that can stripped off the bed between every guest and washed, but not everyone is on board yet.

They're supposed to check and clean those heavier comforters after each guest and clean them if there is stuff on them, but housekeepers don't always bother. Sheets might keep you from making direct contact, but they don't stop fluids from going through. It's not uncommon to find snot, poo and blood stains on the insides of those things. Just barbaric.

And don't even get me started on the white stains on the chairs.

5) No Toilet Seat Lids

While I praise Motel 6 for their classic air conditioning units, I have to bury them for their traditional toilet seats.

Some of the remodeled ones have caught up, but a bunch have opted to keep the traditional Motel 6 style of an open toilet with just a seat and no covering lid.

Several reasons why this is a bad idea:

• Feces bacteria sprays in the air when you flush

• Sewer gas smell (bigly problem in the dry desert states)

• Can't let the yellow mellow if you roll eco-friendly like that, cause it's in your face and smelling up the joint all the time

• No hiding from a backed up toilet, the shower is basically non-functional then as well

I rarely see them at any other chain or property, but once in a blue moon. Motel 6 is the one big offender in this category.

4) No Security Latch On The Door

Look, I know these things are easily circumvented. But they do protect you from several fairly common incidents at hotels:

• Housekeepers and maintenance people rolling in on you

• When the goober kid at the front desk assigns someone to your room

• Electronic door locks are fairly easy to hack if you're really determined, probably will never happen if you're the average Joe, but at least the latch gives you some second layer against it

• Also a good way to air out a room that's hard to ventilate without having to unlock a door or window

3) Beds On Shared Walls

I don't know why no one ever figures this one out.

Hotels tend to have thin walls, right?

People like to have loud sex in hotels?

So ... maybe don't put the beds right on either side of the thin wall?

Why aren't rooms ever designed so that the beds are always on opposite walls? Or in the center of the room?

2) Vent Systems Shared Between Smoking & Non-Smoking Rooms

What's the point of a non-smoking room if someone else's smoke is being pumped into it?

A lot of hotels have still not figured out that when people smoke in the smoking rooms, it goes into the vents, and if those vents are shared with other rooms, guess where it's headed next?

This most commonly happens with bathroom vents, and smoke can go side-to-side and even up and down floors.

If you're gonna have non-smoking rooms, you really just need to have entire non-smoking wings or buildings. If they're mixed in the same connected area, they're all gonna wind up being smoking rooms.

1) Conjoining Doors Everywhere

Oh my lord, these things.

This plague on hotels was unleashed back in the 1960s when the primary travel demographic was the Griswolds packing the whole clan in the Family Truckster, and they wanted connected rooms so the kids and parents could each have their own separate space.

Some people still want them these days, but not nearly as many. Yet these things are everywhere. Not only doesn't anyone ever make any effort to seal these things up during renovations, they keep building new properties with these things all over the place.

WHY. Strangers don't want a crack in the wall between their rooms, or a flimsy door with a small bolt between them and who knows who. Would you be OK with that in your apartment?

Not only are you at the mercy of whatever noise they decide to make all night, they get to hear all of your personal business too, and you're also subject to whatever they want to smoke. Yes, if you've ever doubted that humanity is largely pretty dumb and has no grasp of even basic physics, just spend some time on one side of one of these things. People in non-smoking rooms puff their cigs, weed and sometimes even more hard and exciting things right through the cracks. One time I was in a room that stank like cheap, overpowering perfume because some lady apparently poured some on her carpet near the door.

These things have got to go. They're a plague. #1 on the list and they easily deserve it.