Hotel Selection Priorities
What are the criteria for selecting a hotel to stay at on a business trip?
In my case, I give priority to location, room quality, and breakfast availability, subject to company regulations.
Even now that the new coronavirus infection has subsided, online meetings are still essential, so the quality of the room is important.
In some areas, the signal from the Internet connection is weak, and in some rooms you can hear the coughing of the person staying next door.
At the first accommodation, I check in advance whether the meeting can be held without problems from the room.
If you are staying the night before, you will be spending a lot of time in your room preparing for the next day’s business meeting, so it is desirable to have an environment that is as relaxing as possible.
I want to spend the night in peace and quiet and get a good night’s sleep. Ideally, I would like to enjoy an invigorating meal the next morning and head to your business meeting with plenty of time to spare.
It is also important to keep in mind that a 15-minute cab ride is available as an alternative when public transportation is delayed.
For businessmen, business meetings are a battlefield, and excuses for being late are not acceptable.
We also recommend hotels where you can enjoy locally produced and consumed foods or where a nutritionally balanced breakfast is served.
Business travelers often do not have time to enjoy local specialties, so it makes us happy if we can enjoy the feeling of traveling in the small amount of time we have in the morning.
What is a hotel where you can sleep well?
The most difficult thing to discern when choosing a hotel is whether you will be able to sleep soundly in an unusual environment.
I check the room temperature and humidity control conditions as well as the quality of the bed and pillows as a sleeping environment by word of mouth from users.
For a good night’s sleep, the room temperature must be closely controlled to account for the rise in temperature inside the feather bedding.
Humidification with an air purifier would also be essential to keep the room dry.
Pillows can be said to be left to chance, but as for beds, choosing a hotel that introduces mattresses and coils is probably a safe bet.
For those who suffer from back pain in particular, a mattress with high pressure dispersion performance will make a big difference in sleeping comfort and waking up.
The hotel that led me to search for a hotel that focuses on sleep is the “REM Plus Hotel,” operated by the Hanshin Hankyu Daiichi Hotel Group.
The rooms are designed to provide a “better sleep” through the five senses of the guests, and the rooms are thoroughly designed to be “bedrooms” rather than guest rooms.
The bedding is perfect, with high-quality mattresses using more than twice the springs of ordinary pocket-coil mattresses and a choice of pillows to suit your preferences.
In addition, there is a rain shower room to relieve fatigue before bedtime, bath salts with a choice of fragrance according to one’s mood, and free chocolate in the refrigerator that contains GABA, a substance that improves the quality of sleep.
The massage chairs installed in all rooms may not be to everyone’s taste, but they do convey the hotel’s commitment to providing a “better sleep”.
Earplugs on the table
I have already stayed at hotels near Sannomiya Station that are popular on major lodging sites such as Daiwa Roynet Hotel Premier, Royal Park Canvas, and Hotel Monterey.
This time, I reserved a “twin room” at REM Plus Kobe Sannomiya, which pursues sleep.
The hotel is conveniently located, directly connected to Hankyu Kobe Sannomiya Station, JR Sannomiya Station, and Kobe Municipal Subway Sannomiya Station.
The rooms are cozy with background music, and breakfast is excellent, served on the top floor with a spectacular view.
The breakfast menu offers a choice of bread and eggs, morning curry, and omelette rice, so you can decide what you feel like in the morning.
On the lobby floor, you can choose amenities you can bring to your room, such as a toothbrush, coffee, Yakult and hot eye masks.
The 26-square-meter room, equipped with an original Silky REM bed jointly developed with Nihon Bed, is luxurious and liberating.
After relaxing in the “Warm Pillar,” a new type of shower by TOTO that wraps you in hot water, you can soak in a bathtub filled with bath salts with cute designs to soothe your tired body from traveling and sightseeing.
Although it is difficult to tell from the website, double rooms (mountain or ocean side) at REM Plus Kobe Sannomiya are not equipped with a bathtub, so those who wish to soak in hot water are advised to reserve a “twin room”.
After the bath, relax the body with the massage chair, and prepare my sleeping environment with air conditioning and a humidifier, and finally go to bed.
I turned off the soothing background music playing in the room and tried to fall asleep in bed, but the noise bothered me and I could not fall asleep.
When I got up and looked out the large window, I saw several trains passing right under the hotel, and the sound of the trains’ vibration seemed to be transmitted to me each time.
I thought the earplugs on the table with the cute sheep and cat design bath salts would help me fall into a deep sleep, but it seems that the earplugs were prepared for guests who are bothered by train noise.
I had no choice but to put the earplugs back in and go back to bed, but it reminded me of the website that claimed to provide “a better sleep…”, which annoyed me.
The next morning, I asked the hotel staff about it, and they explained that those who were concerned about the noise should get a room on the mountain side or near the elevator.
“I wondered if it was a good idea to push a hotel that requires earplugs in some rooms for a good night’s sleep,” but later that day, I booked a room on the mountain side next to the elevator to check the room.
The train noise did not bother me so much, so I strongly recommend that guests who are sensitive to sound and wish to book REM Plus Sannomiya should check in advance whether they can choose a room.
