Where have the bibles gone...
I am someone who from time to time stays in hotels, normall of the Premier Inn or Travelodge variety. Over the last 5-10 years I have noticed a common and rather sad theme in our hotels. No Bibles. It used to be the case that in the vast majority of hotel rooms you would find in a side draw, usually by the bed, a Bible normally provided by The Gideons International.
Established in 1898 by two businessmen (John H Nicholson & Samuel E Hill) who were sharing a hotel room found they also shared a common belief in Christ, and during prayer time both men felt the call to develop a Christian Association of male Protestant commercial travellers to “..exist as an advocate for the lost, to bring them the saving knowledge of the Word through not only placing and distributing Scriptures, but also through personal witnessing and by associating together for service…”. It is estimated that over 2 billion bibles have been distributed during the life of the Gideons (named after the military leader and Judge in the Bible itself), although their UK branch has effectively been split into different organisations as Gideons International is a male only organisation, and potentially falls foul of the Equality Act etc.
The great sadness I feel is that hotel customers are denied the opportunity to read a Bible. Often when people stay overnight they seek out comfort and inspiration something the Bible is almost uniquely good at-it doesn’t cost the hotel anything as they are provided free, but it is another example of our ‘post Christian’ and largely secular society, especially in the West. That said it has been coming for some time. Keeping of the Sabbath changed fundamentally with the introduction of the Sunday Trading Act in 1994, and then in 2004 the Blasphemy laws were withdrawn. Ten years later the Travelodge Hotel chain became the first to formally announce that they would no longer have Bibles in their UK rooms. When asked to explain this in 2014, they stated that the UK was becoming increasingly multicultural and “we didn’t feel it was appropriate to just have the Bible because there are people of other religions…”.
Other Hotel chains such as Premier Inn and Ibis seem to have followed suit, and hotel Bibles have largely gone the way of landline handsets, biscuits, and a physical front of house reception with staff!
There is also a business side to hotel chains’ unwillingness to provide the Bible to their customers. Most hotels are chasing the ‘Millennial ‘(30-44 years old) and ‘Generation Z’ (under 30 years old) demographic. That age group look for different things in the places they stay compared to say the ‘baby boomers’ (60-75 age group) – free Wi-Fi, digital check-in, mobile apps, mobile key access and plenty of USB and charging sockets. Having access to spiritual guides such as the Bible is not high on their list- the last Census showed that just around 4% of ‘Generation Z’ adults were religious.
It is another reason that the church and ourselves as Christians should be looking to promote and embrace Bible apps such as ‘You Version Bible’, ‘Bible Gateway’, ‘The Bible with Nicky and Pippa Gumbel’ or podcasts such as ‘The Profile’ etc- at least they are available via hotel Wi-Fi if not in physical form! Otherwise how about when staying in a hotel asking the staff if they can provide a bible-you never know it might catch on!
Tags: bibles, premier inn, travelodge, ibis, gideons international, John H Nicholson, Samuel E Hill