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29 March 2024

Midnight tourist denied stay at a Dubai hotel

Shibu K Abraham alleges he had regular email and phone communication with the hotel staff to book one room for two nights from November 5 (SUPPLIED)

Published
By VM Sathish

A leading hotel in the city has allegedly dishonoured a confirmed hotel room booked by an expatriate family on visit from Oman, prompting him to approach the Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing with a customer complaint.

The Indian family claimed that they had confirmed bookings for a room at President Hotel in Karama for November 5, 2011 but when he landed in the hotel lobby at midnight, the hotel staff refused to allow them to stay in the booked rooms and instead forced them to stay in another inferior quality hotel apartment at double the rate initially offered by the hotel.

Shibu K Abraham, an Indian executive working for a media company in Muscat, Oman: “I had regular email and phone communication with the hotel staff to book one room for two nights from November 5th. It was a confirmed booking for two nights, from the hotel at the rate of Dh285 with a complimentary breakfast. Once I reached the hotel with these confirmation letters, the hotel staff were not willing to honour the booking without any reason.”

Shibu a regular business traveller from Oman to various Gulf countries including the UAE said the hotel staff were rude and asked him to stay in another hotel which cost me double the agreed amount, that is Dh500 per day.

"I was in Dubai by 11.30 pm with my wife and small kids. I did not know what to do or how to find alternative accommodation at that odd time,” he told 'Emirates24|7'.

In addition to the stress that the dishouring of booking caused, it also upset his budget as the middle class family had to spend double the budgeted amount for hotel stay only.

“I have visited Dubai several times and stayed in hotels and hotel apartments. This was the worst experience I ever had and I have written to the Dubai Department of Tourism Commerce Marketing."

Following the complaint with the DTCM, the authority has asked the hotel to give a satisfactory explanation to the hotel guest by November 21, 2011.  Normally DTCM has no jurisdiction over such customer complaints, but since the body is responsible for maintaining Dubai as the most hospitable and tourist friendly destination, the officials have taken up the matter with the management of President Hotel.

DTCM has clear guidelines about respecting and Vicky Julka, Sales Manager, President Hotel, Karama Dubai confirmed to this website that the hotel could not accommodate Shibu K Abraham and his family because of some technical reasons. “We are aware of the booking dishonouring complaint by the customer.

We have also received a communication from the DTCM regarding the matter. We could not honour his booking because there was an error without booking software. We have overbooked about eight rooms during that period and it happened due to a software problem.”

He added that the hotel management has already rectified the software booking problem and now they are able to honour the bookings.

Hotels and hotel apartments are very cautious about customer complaints as any negative remarks by such customers on the internet or websites will mar their reputation. “We have to be responsible and respect tourists visiting Dubai because many of the hotel bookings are made through internet. Before coming to Dubai, they search the internet and if a customer gives negative remarks about the hotel or property in a discussion forum of travel site, it will reflect badly on the hotels,” said the General Manager of a hotel apartment group in Dubai.