Exclusive Feature: It's just the precious time of the Christmas greeting messages: Currently from 73 hotel chains and individual hotels I see a both friendly and formal 'Season's Greetings' in my mailbox.

After the new year, it will probably be twice as many as now. I have already created an Outlook rule that all mails that are tagged with "Greeting" in the subject field will automatically be dumped in the waste folder. After New Year's Eve I'm going through it again, just if perhaps there has been a REAL personal greeting lost in it.

If you ask me: automatic Christmas-mails are a contradiction to the feast of love, just a nuisance. Most of these houses now sending "warmest regards" we remember with great difficulty that they eventually offered shelter to us, definetely NOT during Christmas times. But details of many mails with good wishes hardly call to mind. Perhaps the hotel just could not make a lasting impression and arouse therefore have no memories? That would still be better than bad memories.

Of course there are many , and many hotel managers do not like to be reminded of it. Complaint management is a science on every continent, which need to be learned again and again. The booking portal "hotel.de" has recently queried the major annoyances of hotel guests. In the first place: hidden extras surcharged. Thus are not Christmas greeting messages meant to be, although they usually through marketing budget are clapped on the guests' wallets finally, but fees "incurred" only in the context of the stay - but which are not communicated offensively.

Very popular for example is the trick to offer "Wi-Fi in your room" or "in the business center" ("Sorry, this is an extra charge of 15 dollars per hour") or other amenities that today should be a matter of course included. We remember a picturesque city hotel in Northern Europe, which we visited during heavy snow falls and tell us about the kind offer of a concierge to park the car in the opposite city park. Less we rejoiced when we noticed the additional $ 10 for 24 hours parking fees on our invoice. No longer we were pleased anyway when, after a few minutes of research, the official fees of that particular public parking garage on the Internet were seen: $ 7.50 per 24 hours. It was not fun, it was real!

Let us add together again: $ 2.50 Net income for the hotel, combined with the risk of the guest exceedingly, and for an indefinite period to be your enemy by heart, writing nasty comments on review sites and discouraging friends every effort, this home even to pass from a distance. Is it worth it? There is no better with the breakfast: "38 euros plus 5 euros for breakfast," the receptionist in Andalusia told us, after we had checked in. Just a moment: the breakfast was not an option? "No, that you have booked." Aha - on the booking screen it did not look like. At least the coffee then proved to be quite okay.

According to the survey of the hotel portal - about the time we had booked NOT - get angry, not only we, but 65.5 percent of the guests on those hidden costs. Dear Hoteliers heeded that, it's not worth (of certain airlines we want to say nothing)! The second most important reason for anger at the hotel – that is now not surprised at all - the service, 53.9 percent of visitors missed a courteous treatment. Of course, we can expect something similar for a price of 38 euros per night only in moderation. So how can we expect at breakfast for 5 euros only a limited choice of soft toast, toasted toast, bitter tea and something similar to coffee.

If 48.2 percent of those surveyed by hotel.de complain about a small selection at breakfast, probably some 5-euro candidates are below.

Depending on the classification should this complaint more or less seriously. This was followed by a further 7 commonly Hotel Annoyances: uncomfortable beds (45.9 percent), dirty rooms (43.1 percent), unfriendly staff (surprisingly rare: 35.2 percent), lousy breakfast (32.9 percent), noise at night (30.6 percent), poor relationship between price and performance (29.9 percent) and "Hotel does not deliver what it promises" (26.2 percent). Least the first 7 points can be solved with relative effort. We believe this presents a sustainable investment in the quality and return-ratio.

Oh, we do not have a 11th Grounds for complaint: Unwanted Christmas greeting messages. The hoteliers can really save and literally. Oh, for the opportunity to: Happy Christmas!

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Roland Wildberg is Travel Writer and Correspondent based in Berlin, Germany. He started as an Editor for the National daily 'Die Welt' (tourism section), later on switched to a freelanced career and nowadays mainly publishes on the Web. Observing the hospitality industry always has fascinated him as it looks like the perfect combination of sleeping and writing – work-live-balance as its best.

Roland also heads the annual 4Hoteliers ITB Berlin news micro-site journalist and video/photo teams. For more info: www.4Hoteliers.com/itb