India, Nov. 29 -- I write this column while travelling through Egypt and living in a succession of hotels. Both the St Regis in Cairo and the Oberoi resort in Sahl Hasheesh (on the shores of the Red Sea) were amazing properties, with high levels of service and an attention to detail that many other high-end properties get very wrong.

So here, in the hope that some of them may be reading and paying heed, are just some instances of when hotels get it completely wrong.

The placement of the in-room safe. This is one thing that every guest will use. And it astonishes me that more hotels don't pay attention to their placement. Sometimes they are near the floor so you have to crouch down to access them. At others they are so high that you have...