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Survey Dishes Dirt On 3 Tampa Hotels

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By TED JACKOVICS

tjackovics@tampatrib.com

Published: February 14, 2009

TAMPA - TripAdvisor.com is known for the terse descriptions of hotel accommodations generated by travelers' ratings that range from "The hotel room was clean and pest free" to "The worst hotel on the planet."

Both those traveler comments described the same property in Tampa, the Days Inn Airport Stadium at 2522 N. Dale Mabry Highway, which the most recent TripAdvisor.com poll ranked as the sixth "dirtiest hotel" in the United States and first in Tampa-St. Petersburg in a report released last month.

The Days Inn Busch at 2901 E. Busch Blvd. and the Clarion Hotel & Conference Center at 2701 E. Fowler Ave. ranked second and third "dirtiest," respectively, among Tampa-St. Petersburg hotels in the TripAdvisor survey.

The "Dirtiest Hotel" rankings that TripAdvisor.com has published for the past four years are compiled from comments the travel research Web site gathers from registered members. They agree to lengthy conditions for filing reviews that generate annual Travelers Choice awards, including "Best Bargain" and "Best Luxury" hotels. More than 20 million reviews have been posted since 2000.

Some hotels are not comfortable with the ratings, said Brooke Ferencsik, senior manager of media relations for TripAdvisor, which purports "to tell the whole truth about travel, the good, the bad and the ugly."

"But many hoteliers have used the comments as a way to get real opinions of travelers and use them to improve business," he said.

The most recent state hotel inspection reports filed by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation show no "critical" or "non-critical" violations at any of the three Tampa hotels with regard to cleanliness.

An inspection at the Days Inn Airport on July 14 found one violation each under the categories of smoke detectors, hearing impaired; and boiler, boiler room. Inspections on Aug. 13 and 27 found no violations. An inspection on Sept. 16 found one violation under the category boiler, boiler room.

An inspection at the Days Inn at 2901 E. Busch Blvd on Aug 27 found no violations.

An inspection at the Clarion Hotel & Conference Center on Sept. 28 found one violation each under the categories of smoke detectors, fire alarm systems; and electrical deficiencies.

Nonetheless, some reviewers recently blasted the hotel. Among the criticisms: "bathrooms were visibly filthy and unkept."

A January reviewer warned that "if you are coming for the Super Bowl, sleep in your car. This is the WORST hotel in the United Sates, and should be shut down. Bed Bugs everywhere."

But Tejas Patel, who took over as owner and manager of the Days Inn Airport/Stadium Tampa about 90 days ago, said he has made a lot of changes, including renovating rooms, installing new carpet, getting a better handle on pest control and firing employees who do not work up to standards he has introduced.

"I've inherited some issues, and all I can do is be much more hands-on," Patel said this week.

Still, the negative designation has prompted the group that owns Days Inn brands to investigate.

"We are re-evaluating the properties mentioned in the TripAdvisor list to assess the situation at those hotels," Christine Da Silva, director of media relations for the Wyndham Hotel group that includes the Days Inn brands, responded in an e-mail.

"We inspect each of the hotels in our system at least once a year to ensure they meet our exacting quality and service standards. When a hotel fails to meet those standards, we notify the owner that specific actions must be taken within a specific amount of time to address its deficiencies."

A spokesman for Choice Hotels International Inc., which is the franchisor for the Clarion brand but does not own or operate any hotels, said Clarion brand hotels are required to adhere to certain brand standards in the areas of basic cleanliness and room condition.

"These elements are very important measures in our property-level quality assurance process, conducted by an independent, third-party that regularly inspects Clarion brand hotels," David Peikin, senior director of corporate communications for Choice Hotels, said in an e-mail.

The managers of the Busch Boulevard Days Inn and the Clarion Hotel did not respond to the report.

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