Ok ... gonna' bore you stiff on this one, seeing I am probably involved in selling the majority of pillows and hotel linens for the whole of the UK.
The majority buy a hollowfibre 18 oz pillow, a good standard, not too expensive pilllow but reasonable .. a little higher spec. than what you would find in most retail shops. This is probably what the retailer was trying to say. Then there is the 25% who buy the Dacron filled one, a filling manufactured by Du Pont and is lovely and soft and washes well, although two and a half times the price. Very few buy the feathered ones, for fear of allergies, although bought mostly in Scotland Spuggie, as they have more traditional values.
Approximately 75% of hotels do not own their own linen, they are on what is known as linen hire and have a contract with a laundry for providing and washing their sheets, table linen, etc. There is definitely a move to better quality in both sheets and towels, after all, this is what the guests first perceive in their stay, and you are going to find much finer percales on your hotel beds. Percale is when the yarn is finer, but more threads to the inch so gives a much more luxurious feel to the sheet, what you think of as Egyptian cotton I suppose.
I've stayed in 100's of hotels in the UK and B & B's and only been disappointed a couple of times by the quality of their linen and pilllows >> let me know which ones you didn't like and I will contact them. Ok zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I will investigate this retailer you mentioned and see if they are telling the truth ...
If ya' want any, let me know