Trusting people can be hard but it may appear it is even harder for the hotel industry in Kenya to trust its clientele. I am not talking about the well-established five star hotels. In any case, few of us are privileged to even set foot there if our employers do not organise an end year party there which leaves us ogling at the reception and restaurant areas and not going anywhere close to the sleeping quarters.

I am talking about our tuhotels aka lodgings which more often than not we only visit for the purposes of bedminton especially at those random times when the lady or beau you had been wooing finally says yes but your house is a no go zone. Unlike the rated hotels, these dingy ones will even allow you to pay in hours as opposed to the routine day cycle as is the schedule for proper boarding establishments.

If you are a chap chap man, then you could even bargain for half an hour. The terms full board and half board are alien here as they strictly offer beds and nothing more. You are lucky if you find a torn mosquito net to try saving you from catching malaria.

So, with very little to offer, you would expect them to be a bit more trusting of their customers but that is never the case. The sandals, which always come in different colours, are usually clipped on all sides. Who even steals umoja slippers in this day and age? The towels, if you are lucky to get one, come with the writing ‘stolen from Sabina Joy’. Aren’t there better ways of ensuring clients do not steal apart from subjecting them to a mutilated pair of slippers and embarrassing writings?

We know that trust is earned and it becomes even harder for one to trust when they feel they have been betrayed. But imagine walking into a relationship knowing your partner does not trust you at all, how does that relationship even thrive? In any business, the owners always aim to attract both the walk-in and repeat customers.

But our lodgings rarely retain customers because of the trust issues they have. If ever there is a repeat customer then it is on a need basis and nothing to do with services. But again, this is probably not any genius advice for this market niche because clearly it keeps surviving and rolling in profits without the owners making any improved effort to please the visitors or even showing them any level of courtesy to woo them back.

One good thing though about them is that price is always negotiable and because no man wants to carry proof of his whereabouts home, rarely do they issue receipts that can ruin an already struggling home with nothing to pay as alimony or even share in the event that the union fails.

The only problem is if you take longer than the time you paid for then you risk being interrupted in the middle of activities with loud insistent knocks. And because men cannot multi-task, this small interruption can end up ruining the whole session. There is no decorum; no customer service; no rating or reviews, no guest feedback boxes nor online surveys. It’s a jungle and only those that belong to this market spectrum can navigate the turbulent terrain of subpar customer service because when we pay less we know better to expect less in return.