Dialogue: Behind the desk at heartbreak motel

Motel guests sometimes have justifiable grievances but it's certainly not all beer and skittles on the other side of the reception desk, writes BRYAN JACKSON*.

As Don Donovan related in his column on motels [see link below. Ed.], many of us have experienced the 1967 green shag-pile carpets and stoves that should have been relegated to Motat eons ago.

But what are the guests who stay in motels like? Is running a motel, as real estate agents would have prospective moteliers believe, a great lifestyle where all you do is take the cash and go swimming in the afternoons?

In a word, no. Dealing with the public involves days of hilarity, frustration and, at times, disbelief.

Auckland receives more than 1.2 million tourists a year, a sure recipe for a steady stream of interesting characters.

An early difficulty for many tourists is their attempts to get to the motel from the airport. Their trip is made more difficult because the map that the rental car company has given them was printed in 1955 and highlights the recent opening of the Harbour Bridge.

After two laps of Auckland, they tend to arrive a little frazzled. Telling them that it is only 20 minutes from the airport does not change their view that it is your fault.

Many tourists who have come from the airport by taxi feel that they have already seen much of the North Island. They often ask the driver for a discount because they held the map and found the motel for him.

Once in the motel rooms, many guests try to earn a place in the next edition of Ripley's Believe It or Not.

While we have a guest directory in the room to help guests to discover Auckland, find a restaurant or supermarket, and tell them how to use a telephone, I am thinking of introducing a more basic directory.

This will stop guests from boiling noodles in the jug, cooking bacon in the toaster, buttering bread and then toasting it, or filling a teapot with water and boiling it on the stove element while they watch the handle melt.

Obviously, some people should not travel.

As one would expect, cultural differences are apparent in the manner in which guests act while at the motel. How can you tell if Germans have stayed? You cannot. They bring a new meaning to the phrase spick and span.

The Americans appear to be the most nervous of travellers (spending 13 hours on a plane trying to work out how they will ever manage to drive on the left gets their blood pressure rising) and they feel that they might miss something about New Zealand if they don't ask you a minimum of 500 questions a day. A way to make them happy is to give them a facecloth each.

Asian visitors require moteliers to buy extra squeegees to mop up the bathrooms and to make sure that there are at least 1000 extra brochures on the reception rack.

The infrequent use of the showers by the English saves on water and laundry costs.

A recent French guest asked where he could buy a Zodiac inflatable, so I gave him the address of Mt Eden Prison where the previous French buyers of a Zodiac had stayed (we never forget).

Bruce and Sheila from across the ditch love telling us about what it's like to win at sport but I wish someone in Tourism New Zealand would tell them that the power crisis ended two years ago.

What must some of these guests tell their friends when they return home?

Do they own up to driving from Auckland to the Bay of Islands via Hamilton, crossing the Harbour Bridge twice when driving from the North Shore into the city, driving from the airport to the motel and realising that a trolley with two of their four suitcases was still in the carpark?

And what about the couple who went on a day bus tour to the Bay of Islands but discovered that it was a three-day tour when the driver asked them at 6 pm which Paihia motel they were booked into?

Most guests are grateful for touring information that they are given. However, there was the couple who were not going to the Bay of Islands because the islands near Perth were better and were giving Rotorua a miss because they heard that it smelled funny. They had already decided on their itinerary. I think they went to Wanganui.

Obviously, you cannot please all of the guests. There was the woman who complained that two of the teaspoons did not match, and a woman who was used to making her salads in a crystal rather than a glass bowl.

Another disappointed group of guests are those who arrive and say that they get paid on Friday and could they stay three days until payday? As they drive out, I think, "Do I look that gullible?"

Guests who require a room for only a short period also provide plenty of entertainment, especially if they leave some of their toys behind. A surprising feature of this group is that they request a room anywhere between 7 am and 10 pm. There is no telling when they will get the urge.

One couple who were dead keen could not wait to hire a room, so they parked up in the carpark at 2 pm. I felt like charging for the use of the carpark at the very least.

Motelling often reminds me of Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected - you are never sure of what is going to happen next.

You cannot plan for someone who says that the telephone is not working because when they rang home no one answered; or the person who asked how long it took to drive from Wellington to Picton.

What guidebook tells you what to do when a man runs off and leaves his wife and two small children behind with no money and knowing no one in Auckland?

Dealing with everything from angina attacks in the middle of the night to a request for a tin of baked beans for a man who was ill makes for interesting days indeed.

Yet despite some idiosyncrasies of a few guests, the public makes my day.

Surviving 15,000 guests a year enables you to look back and recall those who thanked you with bottles of wine, flowers or, in the case of Australians, piles of margarine and Marmite they cannot take home.

So keep on coming - and I promise 100-watt bulbs, double-adaptors, corkscrews, wine glasses (which I ask you to leave behind when you leave) and good old-fashioned Kiwi friendliness.

* Bryan Jackson is an Auckland motelier.