Who to blame, if the boat sinks?

One of our worst experiences at any hotel or resort happened at Sterling Emerald Bay Resort, Karwar (Costal Karnataka town) during our 2012 Christmas holidays.


Keeping-in-mind that Christmas & new year time of the year is peak tourism season, we had booked three deluxe rooms (with sea view) in early September, 2012. We paid the advance money and the confirmation mail was sent by one of their managers. The tariff consisted of room stay, complimentary breakfast and some indoor activities.

Harassment through pressurizing tactics

Three days before our scheduled start of vacation, I started getting phone calls from the manager, that they were organizing gala-dinner on Christmas Eve (24/12 evening). He pressurized us to join the dinner. Apart from the ridiculous cost of the dinner, I told him that we had an elderly couple and two young kids with us aged 6 years and 11 months, and hence it would be impossible for us to join any dinner like this, the manager told me that joining the dinner is compulsory. When I argued that told him that this was not discussed at the time of booking, he relented. When I asked him whether normal dinner would be available for us on that evening, he first dilly-dallied and then agreed to provide us a limited menu dinner. I had a bad taste in my mouth even before we started the journey.

Cheating by not blocking the rooms booked in advance

Bangalore to Karwar is about 12 hours journey and it took us an extra-hour, since we were traveling by a bigger vehicle that could accommodate all of us. Karwar is also a small sleepy place with not many options to stay or dine. We were on our way and were 2 hours from reaching the Sterling Emerald Bay Resort, when I got a call from the same manager who told me that all because some guest met some contingency, hence rooms were not available. At best he could arrange some rooms from us at some nearby hotel. I was stunned and shocked. Despite booking couple of months in advance and paying the advance booking amount we were being denied our rooms. With enough anger & firmness, I told the manager that I would not settle for anything less the promised rooms at Sterling Emerald Bay Resort.

Anyways, we reached after 13 hours of tiring journey. The kids were hungry & sleepy and my parents badly needed rest. At the front-office, we were told that we could get our three rooms at the resort, but not all of them would be the deluxe rooms booked by us. This was pure cheating and it was clear driven by greed, in order to cash-in on the walk-in customers they had over-sold the rooms at a much higher tariff.

What followed was 45 minutes of argument and immense hassle for us. Finally they promised us to give the rooms promised to us by next day. We had no choice but to compromise.

Total Apathy for Guest Comfort

On the Christmas Eve, during their gala dinner, they played the music so loud till late hours to ensure that we could not sleep or rest in comfort. The loud music kept pounding our ears till midnight and only after repeated requests and begging, they stopped the same.

Besides this most of the evening they were having some or other special dinner. For those guests who would not opt for their exorbitant dinners, they would offer only limited-menu dinner, something that was never told to us when we booked our rooms. So for most of our meals, we did not get the items that we chose and had to compromise & settle for something that was available. Considering Karwar town has limited options for dining, we had hardly any choice. Perhaps this was why they kept doing this to us. Besides the Goan and continental dishes mentioned on their menu card was never available.

Sterling is a sinking boat!

On coming back, with retrospective wisdom, when I checked for other comments about the Sterling Emerald Bay Resort at Karwar, they were equally bad comments. I then tried to check comments for other Sterling properties. One of the most interesting reviews that I found on trip-advisor about Sterling Valley view Kodaikanal was titled ‘Sterling is a sunken boat’. The comments are so bad that you cannot help but sympathize the poor couple who had a horrible experience at this resort, despite the fact that the one of them was a investor in that property. I should have done this research before opting for Sterling Emerald but I was short-sighted by the brand-perception that I held for Sterling. But for all you folks out there yet not tandoored by the Sterling experience, I would strongly recommend you not to opt for Sterling Emerald Bay Resort at Karwar and beware of any sterling hotel or resort. After all the greed seems to be the common string!

Culture-rot

Why do you think that so many people have pathetic experience at Sterling at different times, at different locations? The answer lies in culture-rot at Sterling. The employees who work for Sterling have figured-out the culture of the management that they work for and hence they provide the same treatment to their guests. The culture-rot is right at the top that percolates to the bottom, since most employees find conforming to that culture as the path of least resistance and follow that , leaving their guests distraught and harassed. There are only handful people who work for Sterling who seem to fighting the culture and hence account for whatever good a guest gets during his/her stay at any Sterling property. If our stay was some way good at the Sterling Emerald Bay Resort, Karwar, it was due to some handful good staff members that they have employed like Mr. Hemanth Rai, Resort Manager, Anand (waiter), Chumki (Frontoffice). A big ‘thank you’ to all these few good men & the lady!

Organizations trying to engage their employees without setting their culture right is a bad idea and would never work. Culture-rot ensures your employees are disengaged and they would dole the same dish to your customers as well.

So if you got to engage first review and possibly change your culture. But what is the probability that this would happen here? Very low!

Organizations are mini-societies in themselves that borrow constituents from the larger society. And look at what we do and say in our society…why go far, look at the some of the comments our leaders (leaders? Really! Are they fit to lead?), regarding violence against women and on women safety. There are ones who have said that women face such violence & rape because they lead a westernized lifestyle; there are others who have said that women are dented & painted; and if this was not enough that some have gone to the extent of blaming the rape victim and advocated that she should have asked for forgiveness from the rapists, then they would have spared her! I am not surprised with these leaders (after all I expect nothing more, nothing less from them) but I feel more angry on the followers! But then why do you think they follow these leaders, again the same culture-rot. In a rotten culture, people behave no differently!

When I write this, I know a lot people will despise me for writing this. Again I am not surprised! Now I don’t have to tell you why… you know why…don’t you? :-)