Tourism officials swooped down on Sliema’s Park Hotel on Tuesday morning after a court declared it unfit to host guests - but it seems nobody has yet thought to tell guests.

When Times of Malta visited the hotel, none of the tourists exiting or entering the building had any idea of the problems facing the establishment and were shocked to hear that the hotel would be closing imminently.

“We saw a lot of people in the lobby this morning and the staff all seemed very upset, so we realised something must be going on, but nobody has told us anything,” said one visitor from the UK, who is booked in at the hotel for the rest of the week.

Disbelief and concern

Most knew even less than that: by late morning, a single official from the Environmental Health Directorate could be glimpsed in the lobby but the situation at the hotel could otherwise have been mistaken for business as usual, with guests going about their days.

Of 16 tourists from the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain who spoke to Times of Malta, not one had heard of the imminent closure, responding to the news with disbelief and concern as to how their holidays would be affected.

The tourism authority has said guests will be allowed to see out their bookings or move to a new hotel, while those scheduled to check in from Tuesday will immediately be put up elsewhere.

Yet despite a court saying the four-star hotel was unfit to offer services “in any category”, guests said they had not been shocked by conditions, although none had glowing reviews to offer.

“The first room they put us in had water-marks on the wall and smelled of smoke so we asked for a new one, but the room we’re in now isn’t that bad,” one said.

Another guest shared a similar experience of having to change rooms, while others spoke of dirty towels, mediocre food and a generally dated and shabby appearance, with one saying photos on the booking website “must have been taken 20 years ago”.

Filthy towels and exposed wires... guests of the hotel who posted reviews on TripAdvisor were not very complimentary. Photos: TripAdvisor

But overall, most said conditions were not far below par for a hotel of its price point.

“When we booked the hotel we were quite happy, but then we went on TripAdvisor and saw the terrible reviews so we were quite worried before we arrived. We came with very low expectations,” one said.

'Daytime Robbery'

On TripAdvisor, where a quarter of the 1,442 reviews are in the lowest star-rating, past guests were harsher in their assessments.

“[T]hink blood stains on the sheets, brown stains on the towels, the dirtiest sun loungers you have ever seen, dusty carpet and walls, nothing working, staff that care more about arguing than solving the problem,” one reads.

Other guests branded the hotel a “horror” and “daytime robbery”, with complaints including bed-bugs, broken showers and doors, and overall dirt and disrepair.

The hotel was first served with an enforcement notice by authorities in October 2016, followed by another in June 2017.

The owners have insisted the failings were “minor” and that they had spent around €500,000 on “extensive refurbishment” over the past year. A last-ditch effort to block the shutdown order was rejected by the court on Monday.