Grumpy hotel staff deterring visitors

LONDON (Reuters) - Grumpy staff and poor value still blight British hotels, deterring foreign visitors when the economy needs them most, the government's tourism boss was quoted as saying on Thursday.

The fall in the value of sterling against the euro and U.S. dollar should make holidays in Britain attractive to foreigners, but a failure to provide basic services such as soft towels and fresh bars of soap may keep visitors away, said Christopher Rodrigues, chairman of VisitBritain.

Earnings could fall by 4 billion pounds, leading to the loss of up to 50,000 jobs this year unless standards are raised, he told The Independent.

"We've had a period in which people could get away with not being of the highest quality," he was quoted as saying.

"We're now in an environment where you have to do quality. Poor value for money and poor service costs jobs and will cost more jobs in a recession."

He added: "Threadbare towels, a previously owned bar of soap and a grumpy person who says: 'We don't do breakfast before 8am and we don't do it after 8.12am' -- you don't get a lot of happy customers."

The comments came in the same week "Which?" consumer magazine published the findings of an undercover investigation which found some budget hotels had stained and mouldy mattresses and even unclean toilets.

The fall in the value of the pound represents about a 21 percent saving for people travelling to the UK from the eurozone and 27 percent for those from the U.S..

Thirty-two million people visit Britain each year, generating 114 billion pounds and employing 2.6 million people, the report said.

(Reporting by Avril Ormsby; Editing by Steve Addison)