I review every hotel I stay in, and I very rarely feel compelled to leave a review like this. In fact, I can hardly remember ever seriously considering giving a hotel such a low rating.
That is precisely why this review matters so much to me.
If I judged SIGNIEL BUSAN purely on the room, the view, the staff and the overall physical standard of the property, I would most likely have rated it very highly. The room is beautiful, modern and very well maintained. The ocean view is excellent. The overall presentation is polished and clearly positioned at the upper end even within the five star segment. The staff, throughout my stay, were consistently friendly, professional and courteous. I cannot complain about their manner at all.
And that is exactly what makes this so disappointing.
The stay was ultimately overshadowed, and for me fundamentally damaged, by the hotel’s tattoo policy regarding the sauna.
I enquired about the sauna because wellness facilities are one of the main reasons I choose hotels in the first place. I had even read before coming that the sauna was something not to be missed. When I asked whether there were any rules I should know about, I expected practical information such as dress code, whether swimwear was required, or how the facilities were organised. Instead, I was told that guests with visible tattoos are not allowed to enter.
My tattoos are small, harmless pieces of writing with personal meanings such as eternity and infinity, plus a script tattoo on my side. There is nothing offensive, threatening or inappropriate about them. Yet I was excluded nonetheless.
For me, the bigger issue is not simply the denial itself, but what that denial represents in this setting.
I fully understand that attitudes towards tattoos in Korea may have historical and cultural roots, and I am not dismissing that background. However, this is not a temple, a religious setting or a traditional private bathhouse. This is a luxury hotel in an international property that welcomes guests from around the world. In that context, I do not believe a hotel should be reinforcing the most conservative expectations of one group of guests at the expense of another. It should be creating a neutral and open environment in which all respectful paying guests are equally welcome.
What made this worse was the reasoning given to justify the policy. In the hotel’s response, it was explained that visible tattoos are restricted because some guests, especially domestic guests with more conservative views, may feel uncomfortable in shared spaces. For me, that is precisely the problem. In other words, the hotel is choosing to prioritise the presumed comfort of some guests over the equal treatment of others.
That is not a small detail. It is the heart of the issue.
To me, that is what international hospitality is supposed to mean. Guests in such a hotel should also accept that they may encounter people from other countries, generations and backgrounds whose appearance differs from what they are used to at home. That is part of staying in an international hotel. Instead, I was made to feel that my harmless appearance was the problem, simply because others might not like it.
That is why this did not feel like cultural sensitivity. It felt like exclusion.
I am a very well travelled guest who spends many weeks each year in hotels, most of them five star properties, and I have travelled extensively across Asia, including Japan, Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam and Malaysia, among others. I have never before been excluded from sauna or wellness facilities because of a few small, harmless tattoos. That is exactly why this experience felt so extraordinary and so upsetting.
I also know from personal experience that this is not simply unavoidable in Korea. During previous stays at other upscale hotels in South Korea, including Lahan Select Gyeongju and Mondrian Seoul Itaewon, I did not encounter this issue when using wellness facilities. That only reinforces my impression that this is not some inevitable national reality, but a policy choice.
Only after that did the emotional impact of the situation fully set in. From that point on, I no longer felt truly comfortable in the hotel. Even though the staff continued to be polite, and even though the property itself remained beautiful, I found myself walking through the building differently, avoiding interaction where possible, and carrying the feeling of exclusion with me throughout the remainder of my stay. Instead of feeling relaxed on holiday, I felt uncomfortable in a place for which I had paid a premium.
That, for me, is a very serious hospitality failure.
The hotel did respond to my complaint in a polite and increasingly thoughtful manner, and I do acknowledge that. In a later reply, management recognised that the policy had made me feel unwelcome, admitted that it did not align with the level of guest satisfaction the hotel aims to offer, and stated that my feedback had already been passed on to leadership as part of a discussion about whether the sauna guidelines should be softened or reconsidered altogether. I appreciate that this appears to have triggered internal reflection. However, for me, the core issue remains unchanged: the policy was still enforced during my stay, the experience was still overshadowed by that exclusion, and the damage to the sense of welcome had already been done.
I also used the spa for a massage and, to be fair, the treatment itself was very good. I cannot fault the quality of the massage.
That is ultimately my problem with SIGNIEL BUSAN. On the surface, much of it is done well. The staff are kind. The room is excellent. The property is attractive and polished. Had the sauna incident not happened, I could easily have imagined rating this hotel very highly.
But it did happen, and I cannot separate the stay from the way it made me feel afterwards.
A hotel experience is not only about the room or the view. It is about whether a guest feels welcome, comfortable and able to enjoy their stay. In my case, the tattoo exclusion overshadowed everything else so completely that all the positive aspects receded into the background.
For that reason, I am leaving a very low rating. Not because every element of the hotel was bad, but because one exclusionary policy, and the hotel’s decision to enforce it, were enough to undermine the sense of welcome that should be at the heart of hospitality.
