Some German Hotels Banning Kids in Favor of Tranquility
Jackie Reddy February 17, 2016
Service, please. Closeup of a businessman hand ringing silver service bell on hotel reception desk
Check that child: In a growing but contentious trend, a number of German hotels are banning kids from their properties.
They may be the future, but that hasn’t stopped some German hoteliers from banning youngsters from their properties.
While Germany is apparently renowned for being one of the least child-friendly countries in the world, this trend has sparked some debate between parents, those without children and the hoteliers themselves, who are doing their best to please guests.
Peace and quiet, it seems, is now the ultimate amenity. According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, guests looking to relax are seeking out hotels that have explicitly banned children.
Despite years of attempting to keep the peace between parents and guests without children, Tom Cudok, director of Hotel Esplanade in Bad Saarow, near the Polish border, decided to ban youngsters under the age of 16 from his property in late 2015. The result? A “quieter” and “tidier” hotel with a more tranquil atmosphere. This experience echoes that of Franz Kandlbinder, who banned children 14 and under from his Bavarian property, Hotel Parkschloessl, two years ago.
Speaking to the WSJ, a number of German travelers gave their honest views on the subject. Jule Denz, a 33-year-old civil servant from Dusseldorf said, “I feel annoyed by the mere presence of children. Their running around, their loudness, their parents — it creates a tense atmosphere.” Traveler René Weiss concurred, commenting, “One single vivacious child can completely ruin your holiday.”
However, parents were quick to make their opinions heard. In a Facebook forum hosted by the Economist, one commenter said that, “Hotels have no right banning children… We should be doing more to protect the rights of our children to be involved in our society.”
Some, however, decried the less than strict parenting skills of some guests. User Alexandra Katherine Morin wrote, “Your children are loud, annoying, disruptive, shrieky, poorly behaved and annoying as hell and ruin everyone else’s experience.”
Parents and child-free travelers may never see eye-to-eye on banning youngsters from hotels, but demand for a quieter, more mature atmosphere is growing in Germany. Kathrin Spichala, spokeswoman for TUI AG, the country’s largest travel company, confirmed that “adult-only is definitely a rising trend.”
[Photo: Getty]
Bring it on, more of this please! Can we also please start installing special family compartments in the back of airplanes where parents can spend the entire flight with their screeching loved ones instead of dumping their little devils on anyone else- as if popping a child gives them special entitlements? You'd be my favorite airline in an instant! :-)
I love the fact that the article states a "growing trend" but then only gives two properties as examples, properties which are likely locally owned and probably not frequented by that many people with kids anyway.
The issue is around the parenting I think. I have no issue with a crying or screaming kid if the parent is involved in stopping the behavior. Kids will be kids, it's how the parents deal with it that is important to me. If I see a parent actively trying to calm down the child or explain to the child why it is inappropriate to do that or generally taking the effort to teach the kid manners, I can deal with the noise. However there are parents that don't care at all letting the kid throw food around, scream and believe it or not, knock on random stranger's doors. That I have a problem with. The knocking on random stranger's doors actually happened to me and when I talked to the parents after the 2nd time, you know what they said? "They're just kids playing around"! It's 1am in the morning!
I have children but when I'm travelling on business I enjoy peace and quiet so I can focus on my work and rest properly. I would definitely favour a child-free environment in these circumstances. Could we not assign different areas of the hotel building for children/non-children rooms like we used to do with smoking in restaurants? Then we can move on to ban drunks from running up and down hotel corridors at 3am :-)
Thanks weero for your great contribution!