The season had started well on the French Riviera, especially in Nice where the hotel occupancy rate had been more than reasonable in the recent weeks. However, the hoteliers located on the Promenade des Anglais faced two unexpected power outages, including one that lasted over twelve hours on June 30th, causing discontent among some clients deprived of air conditioning, hot water, or elevators.
Surely, a breakdown can occur unexpectedly, but the real issue was that communication with those “who owe us more than light” was extremely difficult, if not impossible, after the new outage the day before yesterday, during which Nice hoteliers, despite many efforts, could not get in touch with our electricians from France.
Nice Premiรจre met with Mrs. Evelyne Azzari, director of the Westminster hotel, who tells us about these two incidents that temporarily disrupted the summer life of her establishment.
Nice Premiรจre: Mrs. Azzari, can you shed some “light” on these stories of untimely outages?
Evelyne Azzari: When, 15 days ago (last June 30th), you face a power outage lasting more than 12 hours, with an occupancy rate of 88% in a 4-star hotel, without elevators, air conditioning, hot water, with a security system switched to batteries supposed to last 6 hours, a telephone system also on batteries supposed to last 6 hours, and a banquet for 40 people to serve, it is horrible and distressing to see the phenomenon repeat itself two weeks later, yesterday in particular.
NP: What reasons did EDF give for these malfunctions?
EA: The reasons provided yesterday? None… The PC in Marseille, which was trying to inform us 15 days ago, was unreachable, the Parisian PC, our only recourse yesterday, was providing phone numbers corresponding to offices that had been closed since 5 PM.
So, no one to speak to.
NP: What are the losses or damages resulting from these outages?
EA: As for the losses and damages, they are easy to evaluate:
Clients leave the hotel, or ask for refunds of their night,
Goods must be thrown away because they could not be preserved when the cold rooms went over 15 degrees Celsius, and computer and security systems suffer significant disturbances.
NP: Finally, what do you expect from EDF today?
EA: I expect EDF to please respond to my registered letter, to set up an available and accessible control center to give us coherent information.
