The series began in late September 2005 and was an instant ratings hit; the show attracted 2.5 million viewers at its peak and this prompted Channel 5 to commission another series. The second series was broadcast in July 2006, followed by a third series in September 2007. The show won a
Royal Television Society Award in November 2006. Accompanied with the third series, an additional complementary series,
The Hotel Inspector: Unseen ran on
Fiver (now 5*), one of Channel 5's digital channels, immediately after the main show. It showed unseen footage, including video diaries shot by the hoteliers, revealing their reactions to the inspector's opinions. After three series of
The Hotel Inspector, Ruth Watson left a message on her website stating that she would not be filming another series, despite it being one of the channel's most watched shows. Watson subsequently signed an exclusive contract with
Channel 4 and fronted shows such as
Country House Rescue and ''
Ruth Watson's Hotel Rescue (which is similar in format to The Hotel Inspector''). Hotelier and businesswoman
Alex Polizzi, the niece of
Sir Rocco Forte, took over as
The Hotel Inspector for the show's fourth series, and has remained in this role since. Polizzi has also hosted five other series: the first in which she inspects and improves failing family businesses (
BBC Two's
The Fixer), a second and third in which she explores her ancestral Italy (
Secret Italy and
Italian Islands), a fourth in which she auditions head chefs for various hotels and restaurants (
Chefs on Trial), and a fifth in which she finds employment for military veterans (
Help Our Heroes). Transmission of the twelfth series of the show began in June 2016. Use of a separate narrator was dropped with the commencement of this series, with Polizzi herself providing the voiceover narrative as well as talking directly to the viewer in segments filmed separately. Mark Halliley was nevertheless retained as narrator of
The Hotel Inspector Returns, which followed series 12. The show's opening theme, titles, and on-screen graphics were also revised, with a notable new feature being the inclusion of a computer-generated
smartphone graphic reproducing excerpts from each hotel's reviews as given on such websites as
TripAdvisor, in order to establish possible reasons for the establishment's apparent unpopularity. In June 2017, the programme returned for a thirteenth series, again hosted by Polizzi, with a new focus on high-end hotels. In September,
Hotel Inspector: Checking in, Checking Out premiered on Channel 5 with the same format as
The Hotel Inspector: Returns but with a new name. The following year, the fourteenth season of the show was broadcast on Channel 5 in July 2018. Series 18 of
The Hotel Inspector, returned with Polizzi for 6 episodes, which aired from October 2023. ==Episodes==