Chocolate queen Jo Fairley is a self-confessed control freak who scours
websites looking for hotels that have exactly the facilities she requires
and builds comprehensive files on places she plans to visit.
“I’m completely obsessed by hotel rooms. I need a bedside lamp that I can read
by and I need to be able to get fresh air into a room. I can’t stand it when
I have to have the air conditioning on all the time. I want a really
comfortable bed. I don’t want polyester bed linen. I like a bath because I
don’t use showers. I want free wi-fi – it’s a complete rip-off when hotels
charge you for wireless connection. I’ll scour the websites and book online
when I find what I want.
“Travelling is all in the preparation. I’m always really prepared and I keep
files on all sorts of places and destinations that I might go to one day.
I’m going to an area in France soon, and I went to my French file and found
I’ve got 21 articles on the area that I’m travelling to.
“If you care about what you do, you are going to be a control freak, because
it’s how you get things done. Control freakery gets a bad press, there’s
nothing wrong with it!”
Fairley, 52, and her husband Craig Sams, founded the organic chocolate company
Green & Blacks. The firm was sold to Cadbury Schweppes in 2005, in a deal
which netted the couple around £4m. Fairley now travels to destinations
including Helsinki, Stockholm and Australia as a roving ambassador for Green
& Black's. She also travels in her capacity as a journalist and motivational
speaker and owns Judges Bakery, a short walk from her home in Hastings.
Which hotels fit the bill?
I have to stay in London quite a bit. I used to live in Portobello Road and
you never stay in London hotels when you live in town, unless it’s your
wedding night. So I feel like Goldilocks, having tried out these different
beds. I am Little Miss Fussy. I’ve finally found my perfect hotel – the new
Langham on Portland Place. It’s incredibly glamorous. It ticks all the
boxes, the beds are unbelievably comfortable, you can open the windows,
there’s room to put your cosmetics out around the sink and you can read with
a special reading light. All these things which, to me, are not rocket
science, but so many hotels get so wrong. I stumbled across this one and
thought, right, this is it for me. I think it costs in the mid-£200s a
night. They get everything right and if that’s the price of a good night’s
sleep, then it’s worth it.
Any hotels abroad stand out?
I like a hip hotel but my husband likes Marriotts because he likes a good
business centre. I like a bit of funkiness, so we have a constant battle.
The Marriotts of this world are good for business people, but I find them a
little uninspiring.
Any hotels you don’t like?
The Meridien in Piccadilly. When I stayed there my room was so noisy it was
physically vibrating and I had to sit in that shuddering room for 20
minutes, waiting while someone deigned to come up and move me to another
room. It was unbelievable for a five-star hotel. The Millennium Hotel in
Grosvenor Square was another ghastly experience. I was kept awake all night
by an incredibly loud TV in the room next door. I suddenly realised that
there was no-one actually in there, because when I had been up to my room
that night, I’d found the TV on blasting out in my room. I had such a hissy
fit in reception the next day, because it makes a mockery of these low
wattage bulbs in the bedroom if you are going to leave the TV on all night.
It was also fantastically anti-social. It seriously compromised my night’s
sleep and my performance the next day at a brainstorming session.
It’s also good to be able to see the telly from the bed. I stayed in Whatley
Manor [near Bath], in a huge suite, where you couldn’t see the television
from the bed. I had to sit in a rather uncomfortable armchair to watch the
TV, which was frankly ridiculous.
Your Comments
Order By: