It has been described as “a growing trend in the hotel industry”.
Some hotels feature alternatives to traditional private bathrooms(Image: baona / Getty Images)
Scotland features hundreds upon hundreds of hotels that are all unique, whether they offer luxury heated pools or huge four-poster beds. One aspect of staying in a hotel that is often not considered, however, is the privacy of the toilets in guest rooms.
As reported by The Guardian, many hotels across the UK and beyond are removing traditional bathroom doors in favour of sliding barn doors, frosted glass panes, and in some cases nothing at all. Some holidaymakers are fighting back against these changes, however, with websites such as Bring Back Doors.
Bring Back Doors is an online database created by digital marketer Sadie Lowell that ranks hotels across the world by the level of privacy that their bathrooms offer. The website, which anybody can submit an entry to, allows the public to see how private a hotel’s bathrooms are before booking a stay.
There are three “types of doorless hotels” listed on Bring Back Doors. These are “zero privacy” hotels with no door, no wall, or a wall with a window in their toilets; “50 per cent privacy” hotels that features glass doors with walls; and “80 per cent privacy” hotels that feature sliding or slatted doors.
According to Bring Back Doors, there are currently four hotels in Scotland on its database that offer limited or no bathroom privacy. These are the Courtyard by Marriott Edinburgh, the Courtyard by Marriott Edinburgh West, the Sheraton Grand Hotel and Spa in Edinburgh and The Z Hotel Glasgow in Glasgow.
The Courtyard by Marriott Edinburgh and the Courtyard by Marriott Edinburgh West are situated in the centre and West End of the Scottish capital respectively. Both have on-site restaurants and offer complimentary Wi-Fi, but according to Bring Back Doors the toilets in their guest rooms offer “zero privacy”.
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Elsewhere, the Sheraton Grand Hotel and Spa is located at Festival Square in Edinburgh. Among the city’s most renowned hotels, it features a 19-metre swimming pool and gym and fitness studios, while a variety of beauty and spa treatments are also available.
The Bring Back Doors website states that, unlike the Courtyard by Marriott Edinburgh and the Courtyard by Marriott Edinburgh West, its rooms offer 50 per cent privacy. According to the database, guest rooms feature glass doors with walls.
Meanwhile, The Z Hotel Glasgow is situated on North Frederick Street in the heart of Scotland’s largest city. Its rooms include en-suite showers, HDTVs with Sky and TNT Sports channels, and complimentary Wi-Fi.
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However, according to Bring Back Doors, The Z Hotel Glasgow’s guest rooms offer little in the way of bathroom privacy. The Glasgow hotel has been assigned a rating of “zero privacy”, indicating that the toilets offer no door, no wall, or a wall with a window.
Sadie Lowell, creator of Bring Back Doors, states: “Hi, I’m Sadie, a long time believer that sometimes public shame is good. After spending years running and traveling across Europe, I realised that the bathroom door problem was not just an isolated incident, but a growing trend in the hotel industry.
“And while it may be too late to stop the airline industry from shrinking our seats, it’s not too late to stop the hotel industry. Thus Bring Back Doors was born. A crowd sourced database of doorless hotel bathrooms to help anyone who’s tired of hotels that lack in privacy but ooze in awkwardness.”
Lowell adds: “It’s January 2024. I’m traveling through England with my dad. I’ve gone out of my way to make sure each hotel room has twin beds. And when we arrive back in London for our final night we find a horror waiting in our room.
“There was no bathroom door. There was space for a bathroom door, there was a cut out that easily should have been a bathroom door, but there was no bathroom door. And suddenly I wasn’t just mildly inconvenienced as I had been in previous no door situations. I was angry.”
More information about the database can be found on the Bring Back Doors website.
The Daily Record has contacted the mentioned Scottish hotels for comment.