Hotel room wish lists: Keep it simple

What are the most important amenities in a hotel room for business travelers? Excellent spa services, suggests recent research by Pricewaterhouse Coopers' Hospitality & Leisure group. Or maybe an iPod docking station or a plasma-screen TV?

It's actually a lot simpler than that.

Electrical outlets
For flight attendant Stephaney, hotel room heaven can be found in an accessible electrical outlet next to the nightstand by the bed.

"I use my cell phone as my alarm and rarely find an unused, accessible electrical outlet by the nightstand,'' she writes. "They have the lamp with the phone outlet and electric outlet on the desk. Can they just put in another one or an extension cord that has at least one vacant socket ...?'' Until hotels begin to provide that simple request, Stephaney has taken to packing her own extension cord.

Quiet, cool, clean
Frequent flier Sherry Zoch would like each, please.  

"Soundproof the room. I do not want to hear sounds coming through the adjacent walls or through the hall door,'' she says. "... I like a cool room when I sleep and anything less than a comfortable temperature will negatively impact my stay.'' Zoch gets a bit more opinionated on the cleanliness issue, after a disappointing long-term stay during which she ended up buying her own cleaning supplies and doing it herself.

"I finally purchased my own supplies to clean while I was there and forgot about the housekeeping staff.  It was too much trouble to remove everything out of sight so that they could clean when they were not cleaning in the first place. After one week we asked to have the room cleaned and the sheets changed. They made the beds with the sheets we had slept on for a week. (I had marked the sheets to see if fresh ones were put on the bed.)''

After the ordeal, she claims hotel management wanted her to speak to the housekeeping supervisor about my complaints and to supervise her while she cleaned.  "Excuse me? It's not my job to train and supervise your staff!,'' she writes.

Space
Linda Tonelli, who works for the Pennsylvania state government, would like to see bathroom shelves above the sink and under the mirror, "because there is never enough room on the sink top.'' She also suggests handles in the bathtub/shower.

Comfort
Law firm employee Mickey Czerniski sums it up succinctly. Key hotel amenities: "Comfortable beds - free Internet.''

Do you have a favorite amenity that's not mentioned here? Write to: Barbaracorrea@yahoo.com.