WOMEN BUSINESS TRAVELERS COMPLAIN THEY OFTEN GET SECOND-CLASS\SERVICE.

Byline: Daily News wire services

Women travelers, both in America and Britain, say their jobs on the road are made more difficult by poor service when they're traveling alone.

Seventy-six percent of British women business travelers and 61 percent of American businesswomen said they had received second-rate service while on business trips, according to two surveys conducted for London's Athenaeum Hotel & Apartments.

Concerns ranged from waiting staff who automatically hand the check to a male dinner partner to security measures that make hotel guests feel less than secure, particularly in U.S. hotels.

"We asked British and American professional women who travel a simple question: Is the hospitality industry keeping pace with the requirements of business women?" said Sally Bulloch, the Athenaeum's executive manager. "The results showed that it was not."

Those who participated in the survey - 500 British women and 1,000 American women - said the biggest problems were in staff and management attitudes. "Hotels recognize that they must meet the special needs of women travelers. They did that with skirt hangers, ironing boards and hair dryers - which is fine as far as it goes," Bulloch said. "But they changed the amenities, not the attitudes."

Both groups of women surveyed complained of staff that were patronizing, flirtatious or downright rude. Respondents complained of being ignored and kept waiting at the check-in desk and at restaurants. Some British women even reported being accused of soliciting for prostitution.

Women also felt that they were sometimes assigned substandard rooms, noisy locations and that hotels were less likely to honor their reservations in favor of male counterparts.

"I've been left waiting at the check-in desk while a pushy male businessman gets all the staff's attention," said one respondent.

"Throughout a business dinner, an overtly 'cute' waitress flirted with my client and asked how our 'date' was going," answered another woman. "Perhaps it should be explained to the staff that women traveling alone are not necessarily looking for a man, lonely spinsters, or gay."

Other poll results:

Despite the many advances in hotel security, from computerized keys to video cameras, women do not feel safe in hotels, especially in the U.S. Sixty-four percent of American women travelers did not feel that security measures were adequate and 44 percent of the British respondents agreed. Areas of concern included distribution of room keys, badly lit parking lots, inadequate locks and insufficient security personnel.

Women feel so unwelcome in public areas, including restaurants, that 67 percent of British women and 75 percent of Americans have dinner in their rooms.

Women are not likely to complain readily - just 35 percent of the British would do so, vs. 41 percent of Americans. Sixty-three percent of the Americans and 21 percent of the British would complain only on departure. Forty-three percent of the British would not say anything to the staff but would mention their dissatisfaction to others, as would 36 percent of the Americans.