A recent visit to the Seychelles also gave opportunity to mingle with “normal” guests and get their comments and impressions from the islands and about the hotels they were staying in. Their encounters with the locals were generally described as having met “what must be the happiest people on the planet,” a sentiment shared by this correspondent.

When it came to their hotels, however, some rather acid comments emerged and, in fact, some guests use the opportunity to “let fly.” It would appear that one hotel in particular, now apparently under Russian ownership, has lost its appeal to former guests, at which time another German guest waded into the discussion claiming “one star is too many for them.” It appears that challenges on product quality for the private sector remain, and while the top-rated properties maintain their resorts with the utmost attention, others apparently have let things slide too far down the chute.

These comments were received while visiting a few hotels, and what lies in the future for the hotels mentioned, in view of many new resorts being built or being planned for, can be described in one sentence of advice: pull up your socks or your market will wither away and you have to make place for others who can do better – in other words, shape up or ship out and let those who can do a better job step in.

Overall, however, customer satisfaction appears very high by visitors sampled at the airport and on the flight back to Nairobi, giving even more credence to the underlying message of this article, that those few who have let their property deteriorate, must indeed either listen and do something, or else eventually the hotel inspectorate may have to step in and take star ratings away or resort to other sanctions.