Column: The Good Life: for Mint Lounge
Why don’t Indians say Mea Culpa?
My first article in Mint's Main paper. Why don't Indians say "Mea Culpa?"
The minibar menace
The minibar menace Raise the bar: Paying for every can of cola can be more than a mini nuisance The minibar: I know this sounds like a Seinfeld episode but it is in fact a rant. The one thing that really irritates me at hotels is the minibar. I think it is an outdated relic that ought to be abolished. Hoteliers should simply price those cookie bars and cans of Coke into the room. Perhaps they do already. Five-star hotels in India are hardly cheap. I was at The Leela Goa recently and was informed that their room rate [...]
Rating hotels for review: Mint Lounge
The filch factor: : Mint Lounge 4 min read . Updated: 01 Feb 2008, 12:06 AM ISTThe Good Life | Shoba Narayan I have a somewhat unusual method of rating hotels. I call it the filch factor. If I feel like filching something from the hotel, I consider it worthy of my esteem. I hasten to add that I haven’t actually filched anything from hotels (okay, maybe some toiletries) but the filch factor is what makes a hotel memorable in my mind. I still remember the crisp asparagus-green linen napkins at the Ritz-Carlton in Santiago de Chile; the spa robe at [...]
About service in hotels: Mint Lounge
Leave me alone, I'd like to be invisible please: for Mint Lounge 3 min read . Updated: 04 Jan 2008, 12:21 AM ISTThe Good Life | Shoba Narayan Ok, folks. I might as well get ready to take it on the chin. I am going to come across as a real snob here. But please, before you dismiss me altogether, let me explain that this piece was written with the “lofty goal" of making the hotel industry re-examine its notion of service. Like every Indian idealist, I wrote the following in an attempt to change the world, albeit a world inhabited [...]