Who is going to be New Zealand's version of Ruth Watson? We will require a well built, authoritative woman that looks good in brightly colored blazers and tends to say f*ck a lot.
We see that New Zealand has produced its own TV version of The Hotel Inspector that will be called "Hotel SOS".
We particularly enjoyed the earlier English versions where the original hard-nosed host, Ruth Watson; a potty mouthed, hoity-toity busybody uncovered tacky and grotty hotel experiences. Watson, with the authority of a school mistress, hectored and shamed hapless Pommy accommodation owners into rethinking their hospitality lifestyles. We liked that!
Last year, Qualmark NZ sent an email to all accommodation license holders seeking expressions of interest from operators that wanted to become involved in an earlier Kiwi version of the show.
Qualmark commented:
"This is an opportunity to showcase quality processes and best practice techniques on prime time TV, which is such a powerful medium."The original Kiwi concept was to highlight the virtues of Qualmark and one of their inspectors was to give a quality star grading after the TV host had subdued the operators and magically transformed the struggling accommodation business. It is unclear if Qualmark will be involved in this latest television version, however we see that the main sponsor of the show is now Homebase that will be performing the staged makeovers.
If the Kiwi format is to emulate the successful English entertainment formula, the following necessary elements are required:
1) An accommodation business that is failing
2) Unusually quirky and difficult owners and
3) A straight-talking, self-professed expert hotelier that harasses and hectors the owners until they realise the error of their ways
The appeal of the show is the toxic relationship between the host and the eccentric accommodation providers, however, judging from the promos we are betting that the Kiwi version will be more restrained and politically correct.
Frankly we are not holding out too much hope that Hotel SOS will have any depth and are cringing in anticipation that this series will be just be another brain-dead formula makeover series. We could be wrong!
We can judge for ourselves when Hotel SOS travels to the Hicks Bay Motel Lodge on the East Coast.
It's on at 7:30pm on TV One tonight - unfortunately, it's a time when we are always busy at the motel!
