A HOTEL owner threw open the doors of his establishment to scrutiny by fellow hoteliers for Channel 4 reality show Four In A Bed.
Simon Colbran, owner of Smart and Simple in London Road, and assistant manager Rebecca Heasman took part in the Come Dine With Me-style TV competition hoping to put the establishment on the map.
The pair travelled around the country over the course of two weeks in August visiting three other B&Bs and hosting the rest of the contestants at their own 40-bedroom hotel.
And despite knowing how they fared on the show, the pair have had to keep quiet until the programme is aired from Monday to Friday.
Mr Colbran, who is also joint first team manager of Crowborough Athletic Football Club, decided to invite the cameras in after being approached by producers at Studio Lambert.
"They sent a letter and asked if we would be interested in applying. We had to do three interviews before being asked to do it.
"They wanted to see what we were like individually and what we were looking to do with the hotel. We have only been here just over a year. We've put in a new bar and restaurant and we've refurbished about five rooms so far."
Joining hotel owners from around the country, the group spent a night in a hotel in the Yorkshire Dales, another night in North Wales and ended the show with a stay in Hampshire.
"North Yorkshire was an amazing place where we were in the middle of fields," Mr Colbran said. "We were impressed. We judged everybody fairly. There were some lovely areas. There wasn't any really horrible place, some of the hotels could improve, one of the rooms was a little bit too small, but there was good and bad everywhere."
But as is the case with most reality shows, some characters were not as easy to get along with as others.
"We will get on with everybody as long as everybody gets on with us," added Mr Colbran.
"There were people who I think maybe should have treated other people a bit differently. There was an issue between two of them, they didn't like each other at all. But there were no hard feelings on our side."
The hoteliers judged the hotels by paying how much they thought the room was worth. The hotel with highest percentage of their bill paid won.
Miss Heasman, 23, said: "It was a very surreal experience. There weren't any horror stories from the hotels we went to, but one place had horrible decorated plates on the wall."
She added: "I'm really nervous about watching it. I've not been on TV before."
Mr Colbran hopes the programme will give his hotel some publicity, but it seems business is already booming.
The 43-year-old, who used to help his parents run the now-derelict Blue Boys cafe on the A21, said: "We have raised the profile here. Last year in November we had 680 bookings, this year we had 830."

We'll all find out how Simon and Rebecca got on in the last programme which goes out on Friday 13th December at 5:00pm but I'm sure they'll be quite a few comments flying around the club and the social media scene during the week. I bet also some of the players will be asking for discount on rooms now, especially when on their evenings out in Tunbridge Wells.