No one within range of a TV, radio or computer could have missed seeing recent news about last week’s vicious paramilitary attacks on civilians throughout Mumbai. There was a great deal of footage from the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, which as one of Mumbai’s flagship luxury hotels was targeted for attack as a symbol of India’s amicable relationship with the modern (and Western) world. I took a look at the most frequent words appearing in a Taj Hotels search today and found:
- Terrorists
- Hostages
- Attacks
- Police
- Armed
- Killed
- Gunmen
- Fire
- Dead
How sad. The top words pre-attack were:
- India
- Indian
- Luxury
- Mumbai
- Hotel
- Business
- Guests
- Palace
- New
Taj Hotels has put up a special site with press releases, contacts, and help for guests- phone numbers to call, a procedure for retrieving bags, priority service for getting back passports. There are also denials of employee involvement, blustery statements about rebuilding, and promises to take care of employees who were injured in the attack or are out of work as a result of it. No one could reasonably have expected to defend a bustling luxury hotel in a peaceful civil society from a full scale military attack. Nevertheless the Taj group is going to have to spend a lot of time and money dealing with the impact to the operations and to their brand.
I wonder if they realize that one of the best ways for them to acknowledge and cope with this tragedy are to let their affected guests, employees, and employee’s families testify as to what went on in the hotel during the attack — and how the Taj Group handled them afterwards. If they can exemplify the values of compassion, service, and dignity, this tragedy need not be the swansong for this landmark hotel.
Post a comment