Hotels have got to be more careful these days. We thought last week's flurry of hotel sick was bad, but it keeps getting worse.
Eight people were sent to area hospitals in Virginia Beach after high levels of carbon monoxide were released at the Ocean Sands Hotel on Sunday.
An investigation into the carbon monoxide leak determined the motor in the hotel's spa overheated and burned out. As a result, the ventilation fan stopped, causing the carbon monoxide from two natural gas heaters to get trapped inside the hotel, [a fire department spokesman] said.
Fortunately, none of the victims were seriously injured and the hotel has since been "re-occupied" but we'll probably steer clear of this one for now.
Sin City? More like Barf City at the Tropicana in Las Vegas. The hotel's Island Tower was shut down earlier this week after traces of E-Coli bacteria were found during a routine test.
Fortunately, no guests have been reported to be ill. However, as a precaution the hotel moved 500 guests to other rooms and neighboring resorts. KXNT TV News reports:
The Tropicana is the only Strip resort to use well water, which is mixed with municipal water supplies.... The Southern Nevada Health District is expected to conduct more tests of the water today, before giving the green light to reopen the tower. Hotel officials say they will use municipal water exclusively.
We the recent string of hotel sick (that's what we call these types of incidents), we are feeling a little freaked out about staying in hotels.
For at least 21 people who visited the Crowne Plaza Cabana hotel, this holiday weekend is going to be extra-special because they now have "a diarrheal illness" to keep them company.
While the exact cause of the illness has yet to be determined, the outbreak seems to have only affected people at the Cabana, so the hotel invited the Health Department over to check things out.
The San Mateo Daily News reports the Cabana is safe for public use again (even though they didn't know what was wrong in the first place) and they're making sure some changes are made:
they've put together a program for the hotel to prevent future incidents, including sanitizing walls, floors, ceilings and bathrooms, Gale said. Employees also will undergo a one- to two-hour food handling course and managers will receive training on how to recognize a contagious employee.
Uhh, we hope you mean they will be re-training employees about all this stuff.
There's tons of hotel news flying around this week and we don't have time to give each and every story the love and attention it may deserve, so you will have to settle for some news briefs.
· Hotel Sick: 30 British tourists fell ill, and one died while staying at the Grand Hotel Gardone near Lake Garda in Italy. Everyone ate from the hotel's restaurant and a salmonella contamination is suspected. [Canadian Press]
· More Bad News for Beijing Hotels: The hotel industry in Beijing is not going to do as well as predicted. Some put the blame on strict visa policies. [NY Times]
· Booking Sites in Trouble Again: A small New Jersey town joins others in suing popular online hotel booking agencies, claiming they don't pay the full hotel tax demanded by the city. [Newsday]
· No New Hotel for the Javits Center: The Javits Center plan for an expansion which included a 1,200-room hotel along 11th Avenue at 35th Street can now be filed in the Lost Hotel Files. [NY Observer]
If you've been ill in a Los Angeles hotel and needed a doctor, the chances are high that the white-coat who came to see you was Dr. Mike Oppenheim.
He's been a hotel doctor since the 1980s and reckons he's made 15,000 hotel room visits. And advised thousands more over the phone.
He wrote a few tips for hotels recently that might just be useful for you, too, if you end up sick in a hotel room. Lots of hotels are using those agencies who take calls and then page a doctor who might turn up, eventually.
During today's lesson you may get a bit choked up, find your body temperature rising and a shiver shooting down your spine. If you haven't guessed already, we're talking about Legionnaires disease, symptoms of which include coughing, high fever and chills.
Similar to pneumonia, Legionnaires was first identified in 1976 and got its name after a spate of guests at what is now the Park Hyatt Philadelphia--who happened to be attending an American Legion convention--contracted the disease. It was later discovered the bacteria spawned from the hotel's cooling tower.
Why should you care? Because Vermont's Cortina Inn & Resort was closed yesterday after water tests showed evidence of the bacteria, confirming it as a source of recent cases. It is not yet known when the hotel will reopen, thereby squashing any hopes hotel guests may have had of catching the last ski runs of the season.
Hotels without climate control systems are known breeding grounds for the disease, but lest you think quaint country inns like the Cortina are only susceptible (we're unawares if the hotel has climate control), the last reported outbreak of Legionnaires occurred as recently as last month, at a Quality Inn in Orlando.
Perhaps climate control could be the hot new amenity hotels can start touting?
It's not just us and Garfield that hate Mondays. Hotels do too. Here's a look at how Monday is biting hotels in the ass today:
· Gas leak at the National Hotel in South Beach on 17th and Collins, leave guests seeking treatment for carbon dioxide poisoning. [CBS4] · Fire breaks out at the site of the Mandarin Oriental Boston construction. [Boston Globe] · Hotels won't be making as much money in 2008 [BTN Mag] · Australia's luxury hotel workers have the nation's worst "injury rates for women, spiralling workloads, bullying and more low-paying jobs." [The Australian] · Guess what? Monica and Bill totally hugged at the Mayflower Hotel, now known as Spitzer's call girl meeting place. [NY Daily News]
We linked back to a local newscast story in Atlanta back in December who did an expose on those drinking glasses you see in hotel rooms. Check-out the video above.
Now an ABC channel in Arizona has done their own investigation which was featured on "Good Morning America." Most hotels caught using lax "cleaning" practices (for example: drying the glasses using a dirty hand towel) were budget chains and extended-stay chains.
BUT one of the hotels caught with questionable practices was the Arizona Biltmore Hotel, a Waldorf-Astoria collection (which we just wrote about this AM!) Here's the statement from the hotel:
We are extremely concerned to learn that one of our employees was not following the resort's exacting procedures on which they were trained. We have taken immediate action to address this issue, conducting additional training to ensure that every employee not only understands the procedures but consistently follows them.
So paying $6 for bottled water doesn't seem so bad now does it?
In other news: · Fameball dating expert Julia Allison plugs the W Hotels New York Valentine's Day Spin the Bottle shindigs.[Julia Allison] · NJ Nets Richard Jefferson allegedly choked a man at the Infinity Lounge inside the Graves 601 Hotel.[TMZ] · Even the U2 Hotel, The Clarence, in Dublin is not immune to hotel fires. [Digital Spy] · Another hotelier caught saying dubious things. Richard Born may want to bankrupt the Hotel Chelsea [Living with Legends]
Hotels have got to be more careful these days. We thought last week's flurry of hotel sick was bad, but it keeps getting worse.
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by juliana
