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Feb 8th 2016, 16:45 by J.J.C.
WHEN it comes to young children and travelling, people divide into two camps.
You either have kids, in which case you bemoan every restriction placed upon
them, or you don't, in which case you tut at every concession they enjoy.
Adults happily ditch one camp for the other as soon as they begin a family,
seemingly losing all sense of comradeship with former allies. This writer
remembers cursing screaming children on flights before he had them himself. Now
the sound of a child's crying on take-off elicits feelings of sympathy rather
than irritation.
Nowhere are the dividing lines deeper, it seems, than in Germany. It is a
nation that treasures silence more than most; the place that invented earplugs
and where even school playgrounds are subject to noise-pollution measures. It
also has one of the lowest birth rates in the world (8.2 per 1,000
inhabitants). No surprise, then, that according to a recent piece in the Wall
Street Journal, the country is in the midst of a craze for hotels that forbid
children. Reports the Journal:
Tom Cudok, director of Hotel Esplanade in Bad Saarow, spent years smoothing
conflicts between couples seeking repose and families with children. But late
last year, he threw in the towel and decided to ban youngsters under the age of
16.
The result: His hotel, which overlooks a bucolic lake near the Polish border
and markets itself as an oasis for harried Berliners, has become quieter and
tidier, he says.
He is far from alone. Two years ago, Franz Kandlbinder closed his upscale
Bavarian hotel, Hotel Parkschloessl, to the 14-and-under-crowd. After
weathering some negative local press about the restriction, and drop in
business from families, he now attracts Germans who travel up to 500 km for its
tranquility.
The Travel Without Children website, lists 30 such adult-only establishments in
Germany. Tui, a German travel company, meanwhile, has a global network of 250
adult-only hotels operating under its Sensimar brand. The concept is not
confined to that country, though. Riu, a Spanish hotel chain, is set to open a
1,000 room adult-only hotel in the Dominican Republic this year.
This should have business travellers rubbing their hands with glee. After all,
whether they are screaming in hotel corridors or on planes, kids are an
unwelcome distraction for travellers with more serious matters to attend to.
But perhaps road warriors should be careful what they wish for. Families bring
benefits to hoteliers and to other guests. Squeezing a few extra beds into the
same floorspace creates a family room for which hotels charge a premium. By
comparison, the single-occupancy rate for business travellers is effectively a
discounted double room. Equally families spend more time in hotels, eating
overpriced meals and using other services, effectively subsidising business
travellers allowing them to frequent posher hotels and make their per diems go
further. True, children can be noisy, especially in shared facilities like
pools. But these are places that business travellers barely have time to enjoy
themselves. Children get up early, but so should any self-respecting business
person. And children go to bed early too a relief to fellow guests who have to
be up for a breakfast presentation.
Indeed, it is here that the adult-only concept becomes less attractive.
Sensimar hotels are being marketed by Tui's British subsidiary, Thompson,
through "First Dates", a popular TV show whose young adult audience is itself
not necessarily in keeping with business travel. After all, adult-only can
mean different things to different people. As the debauched Club 18-30 brand
proved, hotels for grown-ups do not necessarily attract guests who will act in
a grown-up way.