People in the hospitality industry must realise news travels fast, and bad news travels faster and your business stands, or falls, on your level of service and cleanliness.
THE ancient proverb cleanliness is next to godliness has obviously escaped the attention of many local bodies throughout New Zealand who are responsible for council-run public loos.
Only a few weeks after I wrote a piece in this column regarding the astonishing news medical staff in our hospitals had a poor record of hand-washing, we now learn a survey of 150 council-run public toilets discovered four in every 10 had no soap and some no running water.
Good grief, even the hovels that featured in Slumdog Millionaire had hand-washing facilities, albeit maybe a bucket of cold water.
The survey was carried out by Otago University public health researchers who came out with the startling revelation the situation "isn't good enough".
That would be the under-statement of the year.
A better description would have been the findings were appalling and the situation must be rectified.
I only hope no Wairarapa toilets were included in the survey but, that said, I will share with readers a couple of cleanliness experiences of late that far from impressed me - not involving council-run toilets I must add.
The first does involve loos, however, and was at a well-respected eating establishment.
I was annoyed to find that although soap was available, hot water was not even though the taps indicated hot and cold running water.
Then I found there were no paper towels, even though the receptacle existed.
Bear in mind this was not at the tail-end of a busy Friday night, but rather at a relatively quiet time of the week when few people would have used the facilities before I did.
Just slackness or, worse still, a couldn't-care-less attitude, must have been the reason.
The second was a situation involving a buffet-style meal.
As my wife, Kate, and I went to pick up our plates we noticed the top plate had dirt on the rim - hadn't been washed properly.
So, accepting that may be a one-off we made a move to take the plate underneath.
But no, that plate had a couple of strands of hair clinging to it, of decidedly suspicious origin to my untrained eye.
My protest to a staff member succeeded only in eliciting the following response: "I wasn't on yesterday."
Sorry, but I couldn't care less who was "on yesterday" and therefore presumably responsible for providing clean plates for the next day's meals.
A proper apology should have been proffered and a bollocking behind the scenes for whoever was "on yesterday".
People in the hospitality industry must realise news travels fast, and bad news travels faster and your business stands, or falls, on your level of service and cleanliness.
The Otago researchers concluded no soap or running water in our public toilets harms New Zealand tourism - yet another under-statement if ever I heard one.