The Sheraton in Poznan opened two years ago and is built opposite the Poznan Conference centre, alongside a busy road and tram junction. An easy tram ride into the centre of Poznan, and with its own underground car park, the hotel is a natural haunt of the business traveller to Poznan, regarded by many as the ‘Birmingham of Poland’ because of its industrial base. With English the lingua franca in the bars and restaurants of the hotel and many British, Dutch, German and Spanish businessmen in the hotel it becomes even more of an irritant that this operator will show Bloomberg, CNN etc. and only one English channel, the preponderance of US channels with their American centric coverage (even when as is the case with CNN they have developed their News room in London)irritating to not just this English speaker but to those from the Low Countries who watch the BBC at home but cannot get Dutch language or Belgian channels at all and are forced with the Brits to watch the awful repetitive BBC World service that Sheraton provides.

Phew! With that off my chest, I have to say that the standard Sheraton offering is good here. The experience of the hotel in Krakow was excellent and this hotel provides a large standard room with a walk-in shower bathroom that is both comfortable and practical. Rooms are generously sized, furniture is solid and lighting and colour generally good throughout.

The main design issue I would have is with the size and number of covers in the restaurant area, which is so small as to require the use of the sports bar as an overflow breakfast room in the mornings. Bar environments are usually designed to provide their ambience in the evenings and whilst they can work for breakfast they are not styled to work well as a breakfast area. Situations like this are common when an owner decides during the building programme to add an extra floor or two of bedrooms and is unwilling to pay more for the ground floor restaurant areas to be redesigned to allow for the extra guests this takes on. This kind of unintelligent decision making or project management can be seen in hotels at all levels of operation whether 3, 4 or 5 star, and can result in a loss of repeat business from a guest who feels he is being pushed into a second class space.

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