Leading hotels are taking all precautions but the unusual service
the staff has been pressed into puts them at the forefront of Covid fight.
A bus drove
through the gates of Park Inn by Radisson Amritsar with a convoy of cars. The
guests stepped out of the bus and formed a single file. A strict distance
between them revealed the unusual circumstances of their arrival. Not in the
company of family and friends, the 29 individuals were instead led by a team of
doctors and police personnel. The doorman was absent and so were the bellboys.
An unmanned
elevator was reserved for the guests — a mix of Indian and international
tourists who were believed to be at a medium-to-high risk of being infected.
The elevator opened into a temporary quarantine
facility at the top floor of the hotel where a staff member in personal
protective equipment (PPE) greeted them. The guests picked up their respective keycards
and went into their rooms for a 14-day period of isolation.
In the throes of a
raging pandemic, distance is polite and the rules of five-star hospitality have
been re-written. The new check-in routine was sans the usual markers of good
hospitality: courteous smiles, welcome drinks, holding doors and elevators
open, and ferrying the luggage to the rooms. The staff was not just abstaining
from doing everything that hotel management courses and months of training had
drilled into them, but they were also suddenly in a job that was akin to
working on the frontline during a pandemic.
“We got a call
from the SDM (sub-district magistrate) followed by a written notification on
WhatsApp. And in the next one hour, the SDM along with a team of police medical
staff were at the hotel for a recce,” said Jitender Sohal, general manager,
Park Inn by Radisson Amritsar. The hotel had been training its staff according
to the World
Health Organization guidelines. The team briefed them further and the guest
arrived the same night.
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