I’ve stayed in them all at one time or another. Virtually all of the great hotels of the world. I’m excluding here for this discussion the destination resort hotels where one goes en famille to squabble with fat families from New Jersey for deck chairs by the pool or get sand in unmentionable places while baking in the sun.
I mean the hotels where people go when visiting a city for business or pleasure. The St. Regis in New York, the Alvear Palace in Buenos Aires, the Okura in Tokyo, the Four Seasons pretty much anywhere, the Dorchester and Stafford in London, the Oriental in Bangkok, and so on….you get the idea. And on this trip we’ve stayed at the three great hotel groups of India. The Taj Group, Aman, and Oberoi. The least of these would be better than all but the very best anywhere in the world, but the best of these is a thing apart. The Oberoi Udaivillas comes close to leaving me at a loss for words. The picture above is the entrance, and it only gets better. Like the Oberoi Rajvillas in Jaipur it’s set on about thirty acres on the edge of a very urban area, but in this case it’s also on the shores of Lake Pinchar. Every detail is somehow just right.
We’ve now stayed in three Oberoi hotels; Agra, Jaipur and now Udaipur and they all measure up to a very high standard of design, construction, and functionality, but oddly all of them are in a very lower economic class area of the city. I suspect it has to do with their ability to acquire enough land to execute their vision. I spent some time today taking photos of some of the architectural and design detail of this hotel, but I won’t burden you with any of it. What I’ve been searching for is their competitive differentation, and I think I’ve got it……eureka, it’s service. And service means people.
1. They hire only university graduates
2. They must be proficient in english, and most have one other language as well.
3. They all young and attractive
4. They are all very well trained (six month probationary internship required)
5. They are offered a career path
6. They are well managed
That’s a pretty good start, but all the major chains focus on most of these elements as well. There’s still something else in the calculus. I think it has to do with their Indian-ness. Their desire to please, their willingness to do anything it takes to satisfy a request, their lack of willingness to say, “I’m sorry, I can’t…”, their inherient politeness, their equipoise, and perhaps even their social structure creates a context within which absolutely superlative service is possible.
Let me give you a few examples:
1. S. had a slight case of the Delhi belly. I called the front desk for a remedy of some sort which was provided immediately. I got a call from the gerneral manager asking if we needed a doctor, and when I declined, she offered up her own Chinese herbal remedies. Needless to say I didn’t accept. The next day their was a card in our room signed by most, if not all of the staff, hoping for her speedy recovery. Not exactly what you’ld get at HoJo’s.
2. Virtually every person in the hotel knew and used our name from the moment we arrived.
3. I left my camera battery charger in Jaipur at the hotel and mentioned it to the young man who had accompanied us to our room. He said, “no problem sir, I will take care of it. I couldn’t figure out what he could do. He called minutes later saying that he had arranged for a camera expert to come to the hotel in an hour and see what I needed and provide it, and he did. Later a young lady in the lobby said my battery from Jaipur would be here by courier the next day.
4. It’s not uncommon to be greeted at the entrance to a hotel or shop with a friendly “namaste”, a slight bow of the head with hands together in a prayer like position under the chin. But at the Oberoi it dosn’t stop there. The walk from our tented villa at the Oberoi in Jaipur was about 150 meters along a stone walkway with eucalyptus and other trees forming a canopy along the way. Quite beautiful, but unfortunately these same trees became a pigeon roost in the late afternoon and evening with the predictable result of massive amounts of pigeon poop on the stones of the walkway. It fell to some unlucky folks at the bottom of the hotel staff pecking order to each morning water down and scrape away the pigeon s**t. As I walked by wondering what it would be like to spend my working time scrubbing away at pigeon dung, each of these young laborers would stand up as I approached and greet me with a gentle, “namaste, good morning sir.” And they seemed to really mean it.
I don’t understand it all, but I really like it. To be treated like an honored guest is something we don’t get to experience in the US much anymore.
On top of all of this, today’s flight from Jaipur to Udaipur was the best commercial flight I’ve taken in…..well, I can’t remember when. Except for the fact that we had to leave the hotel at 5:15 am, everything was a pleasure. The estimated forty-five minute drive to the airport took only thirty. There was no traffic to speak of and the city looked almost pristine in the predawn. I had a momentary start when we arrived at the entrance to the airport to see hundreds of people with dilapidated luggage and taped boxes and sacks getting on and off buses that had clearly seen better days. I asked our travel representative what the deal was, and he explained that these were Hajis returning from their pilgramage to Mecca, and due to tight security, he would not be able to see us into the airport and through the ticketing process, but he said, “no problem, I’ll arrange for someone inside to care for you”. And he did. A smoother and faster check in than AA. We boarded a new 737-300 on time and were greeted, by name, by a pleasant and efficient on-board crew. In the thirty-five minute air time, we were served coffee and a far better than average continental breakfast. We landed five minutes early, were the first off the plane and our luggage beat us to the carousel. Our handlers on this end had us loaded and in the car seven minutes after we deboarded.
Go figure.
