 As you enter the car that has come to pick you up from the Mumbai Airport to take you to Four Seasons Hotel, the chauffeur politely welcomes you and offers you the Wi-Fi password for the car, with the compliments of the management, along with a bottle of cold water. If it’s a BMW 7, you are even offered an iPad. Since the whole fleet is BMW (I was told by the chauffeur that there are a total of 24 BMWs-all 5 or 7 series) you look forward to a luxurious stay. Despite having the 3G service on my phone, I couldn’t resist trying the car Wi-Fi. It worked fine and put me on some sort of a high.
But as I checked in at the hotel and nonchalantly asked for the password for internet that I am so used to in my overseas travels. I was in for a rude shock when the receptionist told me it would cost me Rs.960++ (Around Rs.1100 AI) extra. Not believing my ears, I told them surely they had the free use in the lobby or there was a computer which was complimentary for the use of the hotel guests - a practice prevalent in smaller hotels in Europe where rooms have complex internet services. No such luck. I could use it for one hour and pay Rs.600++ only! As a journalist who feels like a fish out of water without the internet, I thought this was a highway hold-up. But sorry, that was the hotel policy, I was told.
Next day I had to move to Trident Nariman. Surely, with several innovative ideas in their bag during the past 40 years, they would be far more progressive, I thought. With the international passengers used to free internet at most hotels, airports and even many cities now, this practice would have permeated through the system. I have stayed in several 5-star hotels across India during the recent past where the issue was never important. Either the hotels did not charge at all or as I have done while taking groups of foreign visitors to stay at these properties, a simple request and they waived off the charges entirely.
The shock was even more unpleasant when I reminisced about my stays in Ginger, a budget hotel belonging to the Taj group through Roots Corporation, a subsidiary of its parent Indian Hotels. It is a clean and reasonable priced property in Nashik. Its proximity to Sula necessitated the stay a couple of times, especially during Sulafest when hotel rooms are difficult to come by. It helps that Sula got a special daily rate of Rs.1850++ or so. As I walked up to my room after checking in, I was startled by a text message that welcomed me to in the hotel and also gave me a free password for the Wi-Fi that worked fine in the lobby as well as the room.
It is not that the Wi-Fi service has been complimentary in any hotel in the world since it was first introduced over a decade ago. There are installation and maintenance charges that needed to be recovered. Now the maintenance charges exist but at a minimal scale. Over the years, the service has been made complimentary in most hotels globally and while the free service is not yet universal, almost all of them offer it free in the lobby.
Protest in Trip Advisor
The managements of the hotels in India still do not realize that the internet is an essential tool-as important as the feather pillows, hair dryers and the safety boxes in the rooms. Perhaps Ginger realized it earlier on and it is thanks to these innovations that it is now expecting to increase its market share in the budget hotel market from the existing 20-30% to 50-60% by FY 2017, according to a recent media report.
In the case of high wine prices, the protests have not brought any tangible results while the hotels continue to suffer opportunity costs since the wine sales do not pick up as much as they could. A protest tool is, however, available to us to express through the widely visited website Trip Advisor. As a Top Contributor, I try to be as objective and neutral in recording my impressions but I make it a point to check out the internet policy of the hotel and explicitly give one star less for ‘inadequate service’ while staying on course for every other feature. I believe, one less star by disgruntled customers would be noticed by the hotel soon since it would bring down the average.
Many hotels are quite responsive to these protests, if made fairly. For instance, In my Review about the Four Seasons Hotels, I recorded my protest on this public platform thus: ‘But with the hotel not providing internet services (free Wi-Fi) at least in the lobby - a common practice in other countries, it does not deserve 5-stars and so it has lost a star in my rating. For the record, I stayed in Ginger in Nashik over 2 years ago to visit Sula Winery. The rates were special at Rs 1850++ for two including B/F. Before I entered the room, there was a text message welcoming me and giving me the Password for the free Wi-Fi! Now, that's service - and here it has lost a point as a mark of protest and registering the lack of empathy for a basic facility needed for a hotel of this category.'
Andrew H, General Manager at Four Seasons Hotel Mumbai, whom I had met personally during my stay and found to be a sharp hospitality person, responded to my review swiftly on October 23, 2013 ‘Your comments regarding the internet have been duly noted and further to our next review, this will be changed in 2014’.
Not all hotels would respond to your Post but will surely notice the Protest. In any case, most of these hotels agree to make the service comp if you negotiate before confirming the booking and respond to this request as I noted in my Post after my stay at Trident at Nariman Point last week, ‘Internet is available but at Rs.990 AI, it is unreasonable and equivalent of poor basic amenity. In today's age it is an essential amenity and must be provided at least in the lobby as even budget hotels do overseas. Although when the right person was contacted, he took a quick decision and agreed to make it complimentary, I think this is a poor example of hospitality and deserves one less star. I would have liked to give 4.5 stars and not 4 but since there is no provision I am obliged to give only 4 stars.’
With social media becoming more and more active, we owe it to ourselves and the other travelers to judiciously record our impression and must protest against this ridiculous cost for a service as necessary as a shower. But remember, objectivity and neutrality will go a long way in making your response credible and make the Post more effective.
Subhash Arora |