Bathroom Blogfest starts now

Today the Bathroom Blogfest starts! A year ago, 9 bloggers wrote a whole week about the importance of a decent, clean bathroom in the customer experience. This year, a whopping 22 bloggers will be writing about the same subject. See below for the full list of all the ladies (and one man) who will be going on about the good, the bad and the ugly of the little rooms. There is a blog that unites all the posts and there even is a Facebook group.

I've been thinking for a while on what to write about, as I do have some strong opinions about toilets all over the world. So I decided to go exactly with that, my experiences in the different countries and how they compare to each other.

As a proud Belgian (although I don't live there anymore), I'll start with my home country. Now I can't really complain about the cleanliness in general of Belgian toilets. Compared to my travels all over the world, they will rank quite high on that scale. I've never had any big problems that I can think of. Of course, you will always have some of these dodgy bars that need to get some cleaners in on a more regular basis.

But overall Belgium scores good on my satisfaction scale. I even remember the Brussels airport (after Schiphol airport) being quite innovative when they placed urinals for ladies in their new terminal (although I'm still trying to figure out how exactly you should use them). Lady P was the name of the toilet... Or remember Rock Werchter and Humo working together years ago to help ladies go to the bathroom at festivals. They gave away these "Plastuiten" or P-mates, so you didn't have to touch anything and could pee like a boy. I tried that at home and it was absolutely brilliant.

There is one thing I do really really really hate about Belgian toilets, and that is that more and more places will make you pay for going to the bathroom. Now how ridiculous is that! And no, it's not a matter of tipping, they actually list the price for going. And these toilets are not any cleaner than the ones where you don't pay, it has just become a habbit and everyone just pays. Even very classy (read expensive) restaurants have the balls to ask for half a Euro to go. I really don't understand why everyone thinks this is normal. As a lot of my readers are Belgian, what do you think about this?

Here's as promised, the full list of bloggers:

• Kate Rutter—Adaptive Path
• Laurence Helene Borel—Blog Till You Drop
• Iris Shreve Garrott—checking out and checking in
• Susan Abbott—Customer Experience Crossroads
• Maria Palma—Customers Are Always
• Becky Carroll—Customers Rock!
• Toby Bloomberg—Diva Marketing
• Stephanie Weaver—Experienceology
• Linda Tischler—Fast Company Now
• C.B. Whittemore—Flooring the Consumer
• Ed Pell—K+B DeltaVee
• Helene Blowers—Library Bytes
• Katie Clark—Practical Katie
• Sandra Renshaw—Purple Wren
• Reshma Anand—Qualitative Research
• Marianna Hayes—Results Revolution
• Carolyn Townes—Spirit Women
• Sara Cantor—The Curious Shopper
• Anna Farmery—The Engaging Brand
• Dee McCrorey—The Ultimate Corporate Entrepreneur
• Katia S. Adams—Transcultural

Comments

[moustache]

Being a man, I can only submit a couple of male examples of bathrooms I recently came past throughout europe...
http://www.moustachetransparante.com/2007/10/toilethumor.html
http://www.moustachetransparante.com/2007/10/toilethumor-part-2.html
http://www.moustachetransparante.com/2007/10/toilet-part-3.html

[Vera]

I find it also quite irritating that one has to pay to "ease" her/hisself (a nice expression used by African people). More than once I had a fight with the so called "toilet ladies". It's easy to make money while you're reading a magazine. So it's very simple with me: no cleaning, no paying!

[moustache]

Yet another interesting bathroom in Osaka:
http://www.moustachetransparante.com/2008/06/plassen-op-hoogte.html