Wednesday, September 12, 2007

International hotels

One of the interesting things I do during my job is to call hotels in other countries. This sometimes involves a language barrier but we're fortunate that English is really the international language of the travel industry.
Today was my first call to Moscow. The guy on the other end of the line was either named Peter (Pytor?) or he misunderstood and was repeating my name back to me. They didn't have the availability that we needed (I think) so our conversation didn't go too deep. The two months of Russian I took ten years ago flashed through my mind but none of it stuck enough to be helpful. I did close with a polite 'Spaceba'.
Southeast Asian hoteliers are invariably polite. They are a joy to work with if you can understand each other. That also goes for the regions airlines.
The worst hotels to call? New York or DC. Hard to understand and dripping with condescension and/or hatred. I'd much rather deal with the level of politeness in Paris, thank you very much.
My favorite city to call? That's easy. Montreal. Warm helpful young ladies with nice French accents. They absolutely make me melt. (Don't worry, the FP Gal knows all about this. She doesn't worry about me over the phone but I'm sure she'll never let me travel there without her.)

1 comment:

Brian said...

French pilots, not as polite.