At the start of the covid-19 lockdown and bored on a Saturday afternoon i happened upon four in a bed on channel 4 catch up link

I had obviously heard about it from before and had as it transpired eaten in one of the pubs featured as a b&b late last year.

The format as you no doubt know is 4 sets of b&b owners visit each others accommodation , critique, score and pay what they believe a nights stay to be worth with the winner of that week getting a plaque.

Each visit and first 4 episodes of a set follow the same format ,

i) the 3 other guests arrive are shown their room for the night,

ii) they then examine the room for cleanliness and in some cases this means pulling the mattress off the bed, checking behind the radiator, or on top of the wardrobe etc etc looking for minuscule amounts of dust.

iii) they do an activity in the area that the owner has chosen, i guess this is to break the ice and pad the episode out some

iv) go out for an evening meal either at somewhere close by or at the owners property

v) sleep

vi) have breakfast the next morning

vii) the 3 sets of guests fill in a critique form for things such as how were your hosts, cleanliness, breakfast, facilities all marked with a score out of 10 and whether they would return given the choice and put in an envelope a payment to cover what they thought the stay was worth

vii) guests leave and owner reads the critique and more often than not they can identify the guest by the feedback

The last episode of the week (episode 5) has all participants meet and they can quiz the others on the critique given and they discover how much each guest has paid. The winner of the week is determined by overall percentage of payment compared to cost of room. It is possible that a guest may pay more than the room rate though this is rare.

In reality easy background viewing. Having watched for a few Saturdays and dipping into the catch up archives I have drawn the following conclusions

The 4 establishments for a week can be very varied from a glamping site, to a small b&b, to a small hotel, to a more luxury guesthouse/hotel.

The guests can vary from being owners of their establishment, to being workers or managers in their establishment. In the main most guests go as a couple though that could be with a friend who has no day to day input into the running of the establishment they are representing or they go on their own.

I’m not necessarily sure the varying accommodation types work other than to create talking points/confrontations.

Examples being

i) glamping sites where there is not a private bathroom and the guests are to cook their own breakfast. More often than not one of the guests has no interest in this type of accommodation and will heavily under pay or critique. in general they would not be the sort of guests who would ordinarily be marketed to for this type of accommodation

ii) establishments that have onsite parking verses ones in middle of towns ie blackpool where parking is not outside and quite often an additional charge. again you would know this before you booked and would understand

iii) establishments who charge extra for breakfast be that any type or cooked against others that include it in the room rate. it seems owners of the latter more often criticise and markdown this. Some people don’t necessarily want breakfast so in the latter case are paying for something they dont want

iv) difference in pricing. often their is a critique that a room is too expensive or even too cheap compared to their own establishment, but i’m not sure that the person has critiqued has studied the area and market demand for similar establishments.

There appears to be a varying set of points that I call gates to critique or argue about ie

i) breakfast food gate, be that be sausage, egg. comparisons on sausage thickness, egg yolk colour, firmness or not so firm, use or lack of local produce

ii) boast gate i.e. i have been a professional chef or have run an establishment for 30 years, i pride myself on cleanliness. More often than not these people fall foul of their own boasts.

iii) people who critique others and then fail on the same point at theirs be that dust in the room.

iv) dont believe gate, again cleanliness is an example where the owner is convinced there was nothing wrong when they quadruple checked the room

v) extreme game play/pettiness

With regards to pettiness/game play some people set out to just find fault be that from the start or to get back at a guest who had perhaps correctly marked down their establishment previously.

Again as part of viewing I guess that allowing a guest to see the critique of others prior to visiting their establishment can cause tit for tat. It would be interesting to see how a different order to visits would have played out.

Some guests just don’t do confrontation so perhaps can be classified as game playing by never critiquing others for failings.

I don’t understand why some owners who have staff to say cook breakfast or operate front of house take this task on during their establishment being visited as to me its not a true reflection of their place. Owners know when the others are coming so how in reality is their establishment i.e. elaborate continental breakfast offerings, cleanliness etc though you do have to question those that don’t fix glaring issues prior to the visit.

What do the owners get from going on the show, obviously free publicity, that can be repeated a number of times due to show repeats. Though there must be a negative impact on overly critical people or establishments that don’t show themselves in a good light. Looking at the internet I can find examples of where their appearance has caused backlash i.e. a b&b owner in blackpool who criticised cheaper establishments in the area having windows smashed soon after the show airing, a young guy and his partner from essex who refused to stay in a glamping site reporting they have been subjected to trolling and abuse that may have damaged his business.

Its surprising well i guess not that looking at trip advisor for others reviews of establishments featured that people will actually write a review after watching the show and have not even visited. Just shows that little moderating happens on trip advisor and either the owners of the establishment dont check the reviews or cant flag them for removal.

For owners currently featuring you would think they would get their online platforms in order be that a blog/news that is updated, a twitter or instagram presence that is updated or current. Its possible for some newly taken over establishments that they did not get full ownership of all social channels.

Some owners post they are due to feature, or show they have won, others don’t mention it at all.

Some establishments no longer exist or are owned by others but this is not made clear on the repeat showings.

It must be a tough time due to covid-19 for these establishments and it will be interesting to see how they come out of it. I have been checking the social/website updates of featured establishments from the last few saturdays and from dipping in to the last few aired series on catch up. Some establishments have just gone quiet since March, others have posted they hope to open say May, June and then gone quiet. Some such as pub b&b’s have tried to operate food / drink takeaways. There is limited information as to refund policies though perhaps some of that may depend on how they took bookings be that direct or via a booking site.