High-Priced Hotels and Other Hassles: India Welcomes the World
Globophobe has been going to India at least once or twice a year for the past five years. Since we have been on business, our visits have mainly been to Delhi, Mumbai and the area around those two cities. So when we read in the International Herald Tribune the other day about the shortage of hotel rooms in India, we were nodding our head in agreement. In March, we attended a conference in Mumbai, arriving two days before the start of the meeting to wander around on our own (our own dime, that is). The cheapest business hotel we could find was charging USD250 a night! A couple of years ago, when we took two days to walk around Delhi, we shifted from the luxury conference hotel (about USD400 a night) to a more modest establishment (still overpriced at just under USD200) which was decidedly wanting in service and services.
(Okay, so Globophobe is no scruffy backpacker; while we have been known to rough it once in a while, at our age, we like to have our creature comforts, ie high-speed Internet, 24-hour room service, and satellite or cable TV. But Tyler Brulé on the Fast Lane we are not; we're almost always at the back of the Airbus and have no lovely and resourceful personal assistant at headquarters doing secretarial work, making our travel plans, preparing those dreadful invoices and expense claims, and scouting on our behalf for a fashionable and expensive overnight bag.)
According to the article, the government is encouraging Indians to convert their homes into bed & breakfast inns. This could be a promising solution if some of these B&Bs turn out to be like the many comfortable family-run boutique hotels in Vietnam's big cities that cater to businesspeople, but it cannot work in the long run. Business and leisure travelers from the West are still likely to prefer to stay at full-service, high-quality hotels. With only 110,000 hotel rooms, roughly the same number in the New York City area, India simply cannot accommodate the planeloads of tourists and businesspeople that are pouring in. The way things are going, the tight situation does not look like it will get better anytime soon.
That's yet another hassle for the many people - tourists and investors alike - who are fascinated by the country and are serious about learning more about the culture but are put off by the difficulties involved in visiting. The bad experience starts when you go to get your visa. Globophobe has only had to endure the bureaucratic torture of the Indian consulates in New York and Hong Kong. Last year, we went to the New York consulate as soon as it opened. The line was already long. The proper procedure was not easily understood. The ticket number dispenser was empty. And a gruff, Hispanic security guard was barking orders at arrivals.
After waiting in line for more than 90 minutes, we got to the counter and were told that, because we had a Canadian passport and were not resident in the United States, it would take a week to process the visa application. A week later, after we were told on the phone that our visa was ready, we returned to the cauldron (a very hot basement) and queued up again. Thirty minutes later, we were told that the visa was not yet ready. We had been told otherwise on the phone, we protested. Don't complain, the frowning lady said brusquely. Call again. As we were scheduled to leave for India in just two days, we resorted to methods we normally employ only when desperate. We called an Indian friend of ours who works at an international organization in Washington, DC, and who has contacts at the embassy there. He got on the phone, called someone and rang back to tell us that the visa would certainly be ready the next day. It was. Of course, we had to go through the same routine of lining up behind the same counter from which you lodged your application - all very...well...bureaucratic.
Because Globophobe also carries a permanent Hong Kong identity card, we are able to get an Indian visa on the same day at the consulate in Hong Kong. A few weeks ago, we went to the office to apply, having downloaded the application form online, filled it in, and prepared the requisite photocopies of our ID card and the letter of invitation from the organizers of the conference we were attending. We also had the necessary passport-size photos. Since we had been given a six-month multiple-entry business visa in our old passport, we applied for exactly the same permit and brought the exact fee in Hong Kong dollars. For once, we thought, the process would be quick and smooth. It wasn't. No, you cannot apply for this visa, we were told by another brusque bureaucratic lady (Is brusqueness a requirement for recruitment to the Indian civil service?). We showed her the previous visa we had received in New York. Why show this, she asked dismissively. Don't try to get a visa this way, she growled. We knew enough not to protest further, but made the point that we had to have at least a double-entry visa, as we would be entering India twice - once to transit to Germany and again to stay for a week. Okay, she grumbled. And so that afternoon, on returning to the consulate, we received a double-entry visa valid for just three months.
What an introduction to India! In a way, it is best that prospective visitors get a taste for what could lie ahead before they get a rude awakening inside the country itself. But India should take a page out of China's book and make the visa application process kinder and gentler. Okay, so the Chinese visa officers in Hong Kong may be businesslike, but they are not rude. In Hong Kong or elsewhere, if you are not a resident of the jurisdiction in which you are applying, the Chinese do not subject you to a week's wait. Duration-of-stay rules are standard, not applied haphazardly. And the process at Chinese consulates is far more efficient and orderly.
On top of our problems getting a visa, Globophobe has never had a good experience at India's airports. Our experience is limited to Delhi and Mumbai, we admit. But we are reasonably certain that conditions are similar at India's other ports of entry. Why do most international flights arrive and depart around the same time and at the most ungodly hours, usually very late at night or way early in the morning? This may have made sense in the days when flights between Asia and Europe had to make refueling stops in the dead of the night. But India as now a popular destination in it own right and the airlines as well as the Indian government should rearrange the schedules.
On arrival, the heavy flight traffic in the evening or early morning usually means long queues at the immigration counters and a long wait for baggage to emerge. At departure, the flight congestion results in long lines just to get into the terminal building and then to get your bags x-rayed and then to check in and then to go through immigration and then to go through the security check and then to board the aircraft.
Last year, when we were leaving Delhi, passengers fumed as they waited behind one x-ray machine at the terminal entrance. One other machine was not being used; the screening team manning it had gone on break but were just lying around, chatting. A couple of passengers managed to get them back to work by pointing at them and berating them for being idle. All the waiting would be bad enough - and there are many airports around the world that are more crowded (Heathrow in the early morning comes to mind), but it's much worse if you have to steam and stew in a facility such as Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport that is stuffy, cramped and lacking in services. It's standing room only in the business and first-class lounges! And be careful of the mosquitoes. They are everywhere in the terminal.
If you are willing to endure the arduous visa application process, the hassle of using the awful airports, and the high cost of hotels with patchy service standards, then you are obviously dedicated enough to really want to be in India and to experience India. For all our troubles, we have always found it worth it because we have so much yet to learn about this great country and the way of life of its people. Still, here is a fair warning: India had better attend to these bureaucratic bottlenecks, unnecessary irritants and grave infrastructure deficiencies quickly. Once it is no longer the alluring belle of the ball that it is today - and that time will surely come - these "small" hassles could turn into serious turn-offs for people who, for now, are willing to give India a big break and the benefit of many doubts.
(Okay, so Globophobe is no scruffy backpacker; while we have been known to rough it once in a while, at our age, we like to have our creature comforts, ie high-speed Internet, 24-hour room service, and satellite or cable TV. But Tyler Brulé on the Fast Lane we are not; we're almost always at the back of the Airbus and have no lovely and resourceful personal assistant at headquarters doing secretarial work, making our travel plans, preparing those dreadful invoices and expense claims, and scouting on our behalf for a fashionable and expensive overnight bag.)
According to the article, the government is encouraging Indians to convert their homes into bed & breakfast inns. This could be a promising solution if some of these B&Bs turn out to be like the many comfortable family-run boutique hotels in Vietnam's big cities that cater to businesspeople, but it cannot work in the long run. Business and leisure travelers from the West are still likely to prefer to stay at full-service, high-quality hotels. With only 110,000 hotel rooms, roughly the same number in the New York City area, India simply cannot accommodate the planeloads of tourists and businesspeople that are pouring in. The way things are going, the tight situation does not look like it will get better anytime soon.
That's yet another hassle for the many people - tourists and investors alike - who are fascinated by the country and are serious about learning more about the culture but are put off by the difficulties involved in visiting. The bad experience starts when you go to get your visa. Globophobe has only had to endure the bureaucratic torture of the Indian consulates in New York and Hong Kong. Last year, we went to the New York consulate as soon as it opened. The line was already long. The proper procedure was not easily understood. The ticket number dispenser was empty. And a gruff, Hispanic security guard was barking orders at arrivals.
After waiting in line for more than 90 minutes, we got to the counter and were told that, because we had a Canadian passport and were not resident in the United States, it would take a week to process the visa application. A week later, after we were told on the phone that our visa was ready, we returned to the cauldron (a very hot basement) and queued up again. Thirty minutes later, we were told that the visa was not yet ready. We had been told otherwise on the phone, we protested. Don't complain, the frowning lady said brusquely. Call again. As we were scheduled to leave for India in just two days, we resorted to methods we normally employ only when desperate. We called an Indian friend of ours who works at an international organization in Washington, DC, and who has contacts at the embassy there. He got on the phone, called someone and rang back to tell us that the visa would certainly be ready the next day. It was. Of course, we had to go through the same routine of lining up behind the same counter from which you lodged your application - all very...well...bureaucratic.Because Globophobe also carries a permanent Hong Kong identity card, we are able to get an Indian visa on the same day at the consulate in Hong Kong. A few weeks ago, we went to the office to apply, having downloaded the application form online, filled it in, and prepared the requisite photocopies of our ID card and the letter of invitation from the organizers of the conference we were attending. We also had the necessary passport-size photos. Since we had been given a six-month multiple-entry business visa in our old passport, we applied for exactly the same permit and brought the exact fee in Hong Kong dollars. For once, we thought, the process would be quick and smooth. It wasn't. No, you cannot apply for this visa, we were told by another brusque bureaucratic lady (Is brusqueness a requirement for recruitment to the Indian civil service?). We showed her the previous visa we had received in New York. Why show this, she asked dismissively. Don't try to get a visa this way, she growled. We knew enough not to protest further, but made the point that we had to have at least a double-entry visa, as we would be entering India twice - once to transit to Germany and again to stay for a week. Okay, she grumbled. And so that afternoon, on returning to the consulate, we received a double-entry visa valid for just three months.
What an introduction to India! In a way, it is best that prospective visitors get a taste for what could lie ahead before they get a rude awakening inside the country itself. But India should take a page out of China's book and make the visa application process kinder and gentler. Okay, so the Chinese visa officers in Hong Kong may be businesslike, but they are not rude. In Hong Kong or elsewhere, if you are not a resident of the jurisdiction in which you are applying, the Chinese do not subject you to a week's wait. Duration-of-stay rules are standard, not applied haphazardly. And the process at Chinese consulates is far more efficient and orderly.
On top of our problems getting a visa, Globophobe has never had a good experience at India's airports. Our experience is limited to Delhi and Mumbai, we admit. But we are reasonably certain that conditions are similar at India's other ports of entry. Why do most international flights arrive and depart around the same time and at the most ungodly hours, usually very late at night or way early in the morning? This may have made sense in the days when flights between Asia and Europe had to make refueling stops in the dead of the night. But India as now a popular destination in it own right and the airlines as well as the Indian government should rearrange the schedules.
On arrival, the heavy flight traffic in the evening or early morning usually means long queues at the immigration counters and a long wait for baggage to emerge. At departure, the flight congestion results in long lines just to get into the terminal building and then to get your bags x-rayed and then to check in and then to go through immigration and then to go through the security check and then to board the aircraft.
Last year, when we were leaving Delhi, passengers fumed as they waited behind one x-ray machine at the terminal entrance. One other machine was not being used; the screening team manning it had gone on break but were just lying around, chatting. A couple of passengers managed to get them back to work by pointing at them and berating them for being idle. All the waiting would be bad enough - and there are many airports around the world that are more crowded (Heathrow in the early morning comes to mind), but it's much worse if you have to steam and stew in a facility such as Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport that is stuffy, cramped and lacking in services. It's standing room only in the business and first-class lounges! And be careful of the mosquitoes. They are everywhere in the terminal.If you are willing to endure the arduous visa application process, the hassle of using the awful airports, and the high cost of hotels with patchy service standards, then you are obviously dedicated enough to really want to be in India and to experience India. For all our troubles, we have always found it worth it because we have so much yet to learn about this great country and the way of life of its people. Still, here is a fair warning: India had better attend to these bureaucratic bottlenecks, unnecessary irritants and grave infrastructure deficiencies quickly. Once it is no longer the alluring belle of the ball that it is today - and that time will surely come - these "small" hassles could turn into serious turn-offs for people who, for now, are willing to give India a big break and the benefit of many doubts.
posted by globophobe at 20.12.06
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