20 ways to make travel better

Things we like: kettles in hotel rooms and transparent pricing. Things we don't: rose petals in baths and rude airport staff. It's quite simple really, so why does the travel industry keep getting it wrong? To help them, Escape has drawn up a 20-point action plan ...
Hotel turn-down service
Turn down the turn-down ... Unnecessary hotel extras can go to Room 101. Photograph: Alamy

What the travel industry can do...

Stop treating us like terrorists
Mostly, we are not criminals or terrorists. Mostly, we are just trying to go on holiday. We know that heightened security measures are called for, but do airport staff have to be quite so rude about it? It's not our fault the queues are snaking out of the terminal. Airport operator BAA made profits of £288m last year; that ought to pay for some more staff and a few more scanners.

Don't punish us for wanting a bargain
Yes, we know we only paid 15p for our flight to Bydgoszcz, but does that give the low-cost airlines the right to treat us like something you'd find stuck to one of their airplane seats? It does? Oh, all right then. But would it really be too much to ask for an allocated seat number at check-in? Nobody wants to have to push an old lady out of the way to get their preferred seat, but if we have to, we will.

Tell us the truth about carbon offsetting
Does it work? It depends who you ask. The day after Tony Blair announced he'd be offsetting his long-haul holidays (as opposed to actually giving them up), MPs launched an investigation into the whole offsetting industry, amid claims that it lacks regulation and is open to abuse. And the travel industry isn't helping to clarify things. First Choice, for example, launched an offset scheme in November, scrapped it on 8 December, then introduced a revised one just before Christmas.

Make booking rail travel easier
It's not so much the cost (outrageous though it is), it's the Kafkaesque booking system. Buy a standard return from London to Edinburgh and you are looking at £232. Buy two 'GNER standard advance one' singles, and the total cost for the same journey is £28.10. And if you miss the train, you can't just take the next one (as in the halcyon days of yore). No, your ticket becomes invalid, which means you may have to buy the £98 'saver' ticket, the £117 'weekender', or the £232 fare, depending on what's left. To further mystify the process, rail companies like First Great Western and GNER operate a 'price on application' system, as if they were selling mansions or works of art. Go to their websites and they will only tell you how much their tickets cost after you have registered your personal details.

Be upfront about pricing
That too-good-to-be-true lead-in fare may make us pick up the phone, but if you start slapping on airport departure tax, fuel surcharges, single supplements, late booking fees and regional airport supplements, we will get cross and take our business elsewhere.

Don't lie to us about check-in time
What's the point of telling people to get to the airport three hours early if you don't actually open the check-in desk until two hours before the flight? And please don't scare us by putting up 'gate closing' on the departure board, forcing us to run, sweating and panting, along travellators that don't actually travellate, only to arrive at the gate and be kept waiting in an airless 'holding pen' for an hour.

Make airports nicer
Since we are spending longer than ever before in airports, any chance we could make them a bit more pleasant? If they must resemble a vast shopping mall, can we at least have some decent shops that sell stuff you might need? When was the last time you had to buy an emergency moneybox in the shape of a red telephone kiosk? And what about screening short films in a cinema, or staging art exhibitions in the corridors? What about some daylight? And can you fix the travellators while you're at it?

Let us sit next to each other
Once upon a time, you turned up at the airport, checked in with your travelling companions and, in nine cases out of 10, you would sit next to them on the flight. Now, if parents want to be assured a seat next to their children, they often have to pay for the privilege (up to £40 on some charter airlines). It's part of an insidious trend in the travel industry whereby things that were once taken for granted (in-flight food, baggage allowance, fuel costs) are taken away and then sold back to us dressed up as a 'premium service'. We don't like it one bit.

Be nice to us when we arrive
We are coming to your country to have a nice time and spend our money in your shops. The least you can do is smile and say 'hello'. Taking our fingerprints and putting us on an FBI database is not an acceptable greeting. (Even if the exchange rate is rather favourable.) Yes, America, we are talking about you.

Ditch the welcome ceremony
While we're on the subject of rubbish welcomes: we've just endured a four-hour delay at the airport, followed by a 12-hour flight in economy sat next to a snoring, dribbling stranger (we forgot to prebook a seat next to our family). We've been interrogated and fingerprinted at passport control. The last thing we want is to be greeted at the hotel with a vodka and pawpaw cocktail, a garland of flowers and a cast of singing hula girls. We just want to go to our room, please.

Let us sleep
True luxury is not a sleep sommelier or a pillow menu or a rotating bed; it's being able to sleep-in slightly longer than if you were going to work, without being woken up by the chambermaid banging buckets and speaking loudly outside your door or having to set the alarm clock so that you can get to the restaurant before the breakfast buffet is spirited away.

Lose the luxury gimmicks
An end, now, to petals in baths. We came here to jump in the seas and to lie on the sand, not to spend the first 40 minutes of our jet-lagged arrival hauling kilos of bruised flora from a cold tub. The same goes for butlers and turn-down services (which always arrive while you are in the shower). Send them to Room 101. We are quite capable of unpacking our own clothes/closing the curtains/running a bath.

Put a kettle in the room
We do however, want, a kettle in every bedroom, everywhere, in all countries in the world. We don't want to wake up and have to call for a golf cart to come in 20 minutes to take us to the very slowly opening breakfast bar and wait for another 20 minutes while they remember to switch on the Gaggia and then, finally, after another 20 minutes, remember you. We want a tiny little kettle and a tiny sachet of Nescafe in our rooms so we can give ourselves our own jag of caffeine when we want, and take it to the beach.

Don't charge us for spending money
Banks are like people from Yorkshire - they don't see the point of abroad. If you do swap Yorkshire pudding for panettone, they'll punish you for being so uppity. The average bank will slap on a 2.75 per cent charge every time you dare to use your credit or debit card in foreign parts. Many have a minimum charge, so that £10 top-up from the cash machine becomes £11 or more. Not fair. The only honourable exceptions are Nationwide and the Post Office, which let you access your money for free.

Improve checking out
We suggest a major rethink of the idea of checking out of a hotel, so it doesn't leave a foul taste in the mouth. Having enough staff on duty would help, as would employing staff who can actually work the computers they are paid to be able to work, rather than making you sweat for 40 minutes about the whole plane-missing thing then handing back your card with that faintly surly dental-hygienist smile that says, in essence: 'We've got your money. Now sod off.'

And five things you can do ...

Avoid flying
It's not the actual flying that's the problem per se. It's the stress and indignity of getting through the airport. We say, if you have the choice, take the train or the ferry. It's so much more civilised. No interrogations, no fingerprinting, no kindly grandmothers from Dundee being forced to hand over their M&S footgloves for inspection. Yes, the train is more expensive, but you can take what you like on board, you'll see some nice countryside, and what price your dignity?

Choose your airport carefully
If you must fly, think small. Relive the early excitement and freedom of air travel by flying on a very small plane from a very small airport. Yes, there will be less duty-free and more turbulence, but that's not the point. Fly from the Isle of Barra, for example, and you're unlikely to get caught in lengthy taxiing queues on the tarmac: the runway is a beach. At Lydd Airport in Kent, you can pitch up half an hour before take-off and park your car next to the runway for free. The captain will greet you and walk you to the 16-seat plane, but won't take off before you give him the thumbs up.

Dress for the occasion
Once upon a time, flying was considered the last word in glamour, and people used to dress up in their Sunday best accordingly. We're not saying you have to dig out your chinchilla stole or your trilby hat, but if we want airline and hotel staff to treat us with respect, perhaps we could do them the courtesy of not turning up looking like we've come straight from the football terraces or the gym. Oh, and you in the beige Rohan travel trousers, North Face fleece and 'adventure' sandals - that's not a good look either.

Stay longer
No self-respecting Victorian lady or gentleman would have travelled abroad for anything less than a month. And while that sort of time is a luxury most of us can't afford, the current fashion for cramming foreign trips into a weekend has definitely taken some of the shine off travel. In two days you will barely have time to unpack your bags, get your bearings and tick off the main sights. By travelling less often but staying longer, we give ourselves time to wander, to pursue our own interests and to make our own discoveries, which is surely what travelling's all about.

Avoid all-inclusive packages
Package holidays have made travel affordable and easy. Too easy. Though it's tempting to have everything booked and paid for in advance, it stifles spontaneity and limits your opportunities for interacting with local people - often the highlight of a holiday. If you are travelling on a package, it's worth remembering that smaller, family-run hotels will often give a more personal service than an international chain, or consider opting for self-catering, so that you can enjoy shopping for and cooking the local specialities. When in the resort, try leaving the guidebook in the hotel room and ask locals for advice on where to eat or what to see. You are more likely to get off the beaten track that way.

· How would you put the magic back into travel? Email your ideas to us at escape@observer.co.uk or write to Escape, The Observer, 3-7 Herbal Hill, London EC1R 5EJ