Alex Polizzi: ‘The place I'd never go back to? Hong Kong'

Times

2 days ago

Alex Polizzi, 53, is a hotelier, businesswoman and TV personality best known since 2008 as the presenter of The Hotel Inspector on Channel 5. In the show she visits struggling British hotels to try to turn their fortunes around by giving advice and suggestions to their owners or managers, often undertaking renovation projects on their behalf. Her uncle Sir Rocco Forte and her mother Olga Polizzi co-founded the Rocco Forte Hotels group. Polizzi owns the Polizzi Collection of three UK hotels. She lives in London with her two children, Olga, 17, and Rocco, 12.
I travel all over Britain for The Hotel Inspector, and I always feel I've seen it all. On a trip to the Scottish Borders, just before the pandemic, one young couple proved otherwise. They had a pub with rooms that had been donated by a parent, but they had absolutely no interest in it. The husband droned on about hand-churning butter while the place fell apart. I stayed the night and agreed to meet his wife downstairs at 9am with our crew of eight. At 10.30am she finally arrived, dressed in a kangaroo onesie. I was really cross — it had taken us six hours to get there and she couldn't even be bothered to get out of bed.
I loved growing up around hotels and always took it for granted. A hotel always stands out for me if it has good service. A not-particularly-beautiful hotel becomes somewhere special if the staff are amazing. I love working in my own hotels, and people are amazed when they see me. They say, 'Why are you working?' But I like clearing and cleaning tables, sorting things out.
There's the odd unfortunate moment, though. In my East Sussex hotel, the Star at Alfriston, a lady complained recently because the coat she'd hung up had disappeared — it turned out another guest had worn it in the garden because she was cold.
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The last time I stayed at a five-star hotel that wasn't one of my uncle's was the Ritz in Paris in 2019. I felt it was snobby — we weren't quite their target clientele, and it was full of extremely rich, soignée ladies with expensive shopping bags, while I was there with my daughter and we were in trainers.
My favourite hotel, for a luxurious weekend, is the Aman Venice overlooking the Grand Canal. It's extraordinarily expensive but with a wonderful sitting room, bar and high frescoed ceilings. For a countryside retreat, it has to be Le Mas de Peint in the Camargue. I also love the hotel L'Arlatan in Arles, Provence, where there are so many brilliant food markets.
One place I'd never go back to is Hong Kong, where I trained at the Mandarin Oriental for three years in my twenties. I found the region overcrowded, dirty and polluted — it's a fun place to visit if you're really rich, but not if you're not. The hotel was wonderful, though, and the training was dedicated and professional. I think they had three times as many staff as guests and wages were very low. My mother had to send me money every month so I could work there.
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I grew up in Bayswater in west London. My mother was widowed when I was nine, and we always had the same family holidays after that: winters skiing in France at her friend's chalet, and summers in the Algarve. My grandparents stayed in their hotel, the Dona Filipa, and rented a villa nearby for 13 grandchildren; I was the eldest. We had a rigid schedule: breakfast at 8am, lunch at 1pm and right on time for dinner in the hotel. My grandfather played golf all day with my uncle while we swam, and he let me drive the golf buggy if I didn't chat too much. Once, aged ten, I drove it into a bunker and they had to tow it out. In later years my sister and I would sneak out of our bedroom window to a local nightclub with a gang of teenagers that went every year.
My first trip as a grown-up was backpacking from Thailand to Malaysia with my friend Felicia when I was 18. Felicia had her passport stolen and we had no phones, but at that age you feel invulnerable. We stayed in hostels with no showers and were incredibly grubby, so it was a real highlight when Mum paid for us to have two nights at Bangkok's Mandarin Oriental. They looked us up and down when we arrived. We didn't leave for a day, and we had room service and shower after shower. Reality returned in Malaysia when we arrived at our hostel and an enormous live rat fell through the ceiling.
I'm a much more anxious person now than I was then and my children don't enjoy being with me so much. I loved holidays when they were little and wanted to play with me on the beach, in places like Turks and Caicos in the Caribbean. I recently visited New York with my daughter and had to find a hotel where I could afford two rooms. Only my son is young enough not to mind sharing a room with me!The Hotel Inspector airs on Thursdays at 8pm on Channel 5
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