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From towel-hogged sunbeds to underwear rinsed in the kettle, a new Hotels.com survey has catalogued the bad habits of British holidaymakers — even as the same respondents rated themselves among the world’s most courteous travellers. William Hanson, who runs The English Manner etiquette institute in central London, says he wasn’t surprised by that contradiction. “We are a tiny, tiny, tiny island nation and one thing that we pride ourselves on is our good manners,” he says.

Hanson blames much of the bad behaviour on what he calls the “commercial” nature of hotel stays. “It’s a transactional proposition, so some people wrongly feel they are entitled to behave in a way that they wouldn’t at home. Whether that’s leaving their room an absolute bomb site or being rude to the staff,” he says, adding that he finds himself “relatively horrified” on a near-daily basis by guests’ lapses in manners.

One habit he’d like Brits to drop: suffering in silence. He argues British guests are often too reserved to flag a genuine problem — a cold meal, a dirty towel, a room left uncleaned by evening — and could learn from the more direct approach of American travellers, who he says raise issues as soon as they arise rather than grumbling only to each other.

Staff, he insists, deserve the same courtesy guests expect for themselves. Reading name badges and actually using them, he says, turns a transactional exchange into a personal one and tends to be rewarded with better service, while scowling over a slow check-in rarely helps. He also points to a skew in online reviews: British guests, he suggests, are quicker to vent about a bad experience than to praise a good one, leaving hotel review pages looking more negative than the reality.

Noise is another pet peeve. Hanson says corridors should stay library-quiet, since guests may be asleep at unusual hours after night shifts — not filled with children sprinting between rooms. On what’s acceptable to take home, he draws a clear line: cotton pads, a nail file, a sewing kit and slippers from the amenities tray are fair game, but a hairdryer, towels, bedding or robes are simply theft.

Finally, he’d rather guests stopped lugging their own suitcases through the lobby. At a hotel with concierge staff, he says, a quick call to arrange luggage collection is not an imposition but exactly the service guests are already paying for.

Source: BBC News