The Britannia group, which runs the ‘Prince of Wales’ and Scarisbrick Hotel as well as Pontins at Ainsdale, has seen its annual operating profits soar to nearly £20 million, according to its latest accounts. But the group dubbed by consumer magazine ‘Which?’ as the worst hotel chain in Britain – and which the ‘Mail on Sunday’ describes as “the real-life Fawlty Towers” where guests complain of dirty rooms, broken toilets, and stained bedclothes and towels. – just keeps rolling in the money.
Hotel Group Founder Alex Langsam, 79, who has amassed an estimated £240 million fortune since he founded the company 30 years ago, lives in a sprawling ten-bedroom £3.4 million mansion in a leafy suburb of Cheshire.
The company’s remarkable financial performance comes despite damning reviews by Britannia guests on ‘TripAdvisor’ website: a guest staying at one of the chain’s more expensive hotels described his experience as ‘something out of a horror movie’ with the room smelt of ‘stale smoke’, offered stained towels and sheets, anda broken toilet. Comments on the site about Britannia’s Manchester hotels could easily be about the ones in Southport:
“The hotel is very dated and in serious need of refurbishment. Do yourself a favour and either spend a bit more or sleep on a bench.”
An undercover ‘Which?’ investigator found ‘an air of neglect’ to the ‘dated’ property, with stained carpets, a cracked sink and lumpy mattress.
https://www.otsnews.co.uk/southport-tories-hit-rock-bottom-cause/
In June this year, Britannia was fined more than £265,000 for seven breaches of food safety and hygiene regulation at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool – once one of the country’s’s most prestigious hotels. Kitchen inspectors found live cockroaches, and mice and rat droppings. Previously, Britannia has been fined £18,000 for food hygiene offences at its Coventry hotel and £200,000 in 2013 for putting guests at risk of asbestos exposure in Folkestone.
Britannia says that the ‘Which?’ survey is ‘fundamentally flawed’and that the group offers “increasing levels of comfort and service while maintaining its highly competitive prices and reputation for good value”.
Southport Town Centre Councillor Tony Dawson told OTS News:
“It is a fact of life that some people must be happy with what Britannia offer since they keep coming back for more. But I remember well when the quality of the Prince of Wales was one of the reasons why big organisations would come to Southport for their conferences. Thankfully, we have a number of good new high quality hotels in the town while Britannia’s gift to us has been an unwanted amusement arcade on Lord Street