There is a glitzy 5-Star hotel in Qatar that boasts Swarovski Couches in the lobby; they know who they are! The management is determined to offer legendary service; whether you want it or not. The hotel is way over-staffed at the wrong times for the wrong reasons in the wrong places. There are greeters, meeters, smilers, door openers, door closers, button pushers, cleaners, dusters, etc. However, if you need to check out to catch a flight at say, 10:00 am, you probably need to be at the Reception Desk at 6:am to join a queue that rivals the line that forms outside Harrods on Boxing Day because there is one lethargic trainee receptionist on duty. I am certain they can lose 50% of their staff and by doing so; significantly improve their service to the customers.
One of the services on offer is as follows: a well groomed young woman meets you in the Arrival Hall of Doha Airport and walks you to the waiting area outside the terminal; enquiring about your health and whether you had a good flight or not. She then delivers you to an enthusiastic driver who opens the back door of this beautifully valeted executive car and offers you a newspaper and mineral water. On the way to the hotel, a hostess calls you on the car phone to welcome you to Qatar and inform you that she has already checked you in; and when you actually arrive at the hotel, she meets you outside and scoops you off straight to your room and away from the great unwashed.
Your room is spectacularly spotless and well equipped; you have at least three remote controls for everything from the TV, to the lights, curtains, air conditioning, which if they were wired together could guide a missile across five continents but without instructions on how to use it in your room. So, you spend half the night gaining a degree in electronics trying to get the room less cold, the lights to dim and the curtains to close. In the process, you inadvertently disable the Internet, turn on the room service light, and activate the “make my room up” light button outside your room. At around 3:30 in the morning, you are so exhausted you go to sleep in a freezing room that is better lit than a heart surgery theatre room with half of Doha peering through your room watching you sleep with your mouth and legs wide open.
Where they surpass themselves is in the restaurant, especially at breakfast when your mood is at best fragile and at worst, violent.
You have an employee to welcome you and offer you a newspaper; another to show you to your table; a third one to offer you fresh juice and a vast choice of hot drinks; and a fourth one who actually unfurls the swan-shaped napkin and theatrically places it on your lap. Then you realise it is actually a self-service breakfast arrangement! The food on offer is absolutely spectacular, the quality, quantity and diversity leaves nothing to be craved.
The problem arises when you make your short trips from your table to the service stations to collect your food. Every time you return from fetching your serial, or omelette or some honey to spread on your bread, you find your newspaper has been nicely folded and your napkin has morphed back to a swan! You then un-origami your napkin, tuck it under your chin, unfold your newspaper to page 7 to continue reading about border skirmishes in the Balkans and continue your breakfast. You drop your knife on the floor and you discover there are no waiters around to get you a clean one so you get up and search for the cutlery station, you find it, get yourself a fresh knife and return to your table: what a surprise, the napkin and newspaper have rearranged themselves again! This game continues and finally, you are ready to ask for the check to sign so you can leave and start your day in the bad frame of mind you have acquired alongside your carbohydrates. Can you find anyone to bring it to you? Forget it! Finally, you decide to leave without acknowledging that you had breakfast and by the time one foot steps out of the restaurant, at least two of them materialise from nowhere, apply the “pincer movement” on you to remind you to sign your check!
Here is my question to the management of that hotel:
WHY?
