BY MILT THOMAS

EDITOR’S NOTE: InsideVero Contributing Editor, Milt Thomas, is traveling in the Middle East, and will be corresponding with our readers as he journeys to Egypt to the United Arib Emirates.

I arrived in Dubai yesterday afternoon (Jan 27) and I will report more about that later, but first I will relate an experience that could have come from The Out-of-Towners. I am travelling with my Egyptian friend Hamdy and he booked our trip to Dubai through a local tour company.

We are staying at the Radisson Blu Hotel, certainly a quality worldwide chain of fine hotels. Last night we decided to take a cab and go to a highly recommended restaurant, Reem al Bawadi. We had a great meal and then decided to walk it off at one of Dubai’s huge shopping centers, the City Centre Mall. So, we took another cab to the mall. More about the restaurant and mall in other reports, but we walked around the mall for a few hours, then hailed a cab back to our hotel. Our Pakastani cab driver (yes, they drive cabs here as well as in New York City) asked, “Where to?”

I said, “The Radisson Blu.”

“Which one?”

“Which one? How could there be more than one Radisson Blu?”

“There are five or six.”

He didn’t laugh so I know it wasn’t a joke on the dumb tourist. Now, I’ve done my fair share of traveling on this planet and in my experience, if a hotel chain has more than one location, they have different names, like Sheraton Airport, or Nile Hilton, but to have five or six hotels, all called Radisson Blu is like George Foreman’s six sons named George.

The cab driver, let’s call him Amir, then tried to explain where each of the Radisson Blu hotels were located, but since neither of us knew anything about local geography, any one of them could be our hotel. Then Hamdy remembered he had written some information on a pad in the room and had it with him. So he took it out and there was the Radisson Blu logo but no address. I took out my room key envelope which also had the Radisson Blu logo and a statement about how they are committed to excellent service, but no address or phone number. Someone in the Radisson headquarters accounting department probably got a raise for coming up with standardized printed materials for all their worldwide hotels.

We had no cell phone with us so we asked the driver to call his dispatcher for the hotel phone numbers, but he had no dispatcher. I asked for his cell phone, but he didn’t know how to find any phone number, much less numbers for all the Radisson Blus in Dubai. So based on his description and our recollection of what the surrounding area looked like, he drove us to one of the hotels.

We knew immediately this was not the one. But we asked at the desk. Based on our description, they told us which one we were staying at. We drove there and paid the cab driver, who was very happy after driving us around for an hour. He left and we went inside the lobby, but guess what – this wasn’t our hotel either. The night manager offered to help us as it was now close to eleven and we were obviously tired (up since 330am, driving to the airport in Cairo, three hour flight, big dinner, long walk, fruitless cab ride). One by one, he called each of the Radisson Blu hotels and asked if they had a guest in room 1203 named Milt Thomas.

One after another had nobody registered by that name.  Some of them didn’t even have a room 1203. I asked the manager if this ever happened before, where a guest didn’t know which Radisson Blu was his. He said yes, it does happen. I asked if he or anyone in the organization might have reported that to headquarters and possibly considered giving each Radisson its own identifying name. He agreed that would be a good idea, but no, it had not been done before.

Finally, his very last call was successful. “Congratulations, Mr. Thomas, you are staying at the Radisson Blu downtown.”

“Downtown?” I asked. “Is that near the City Centre Mall?”

“Yes,” he said with a smile, “very close.”

I’m sure he was wondering why we didn’t try that one first, but I explained that we had been picked up at the airport this afternoon and driven directly to the hotel, then later took a cab to a restaurant, then another cab to the mall and it was my first time in Dubai.

So, he called a cab for us and we drove close to an hour back to the Radisson Blu downtown.

Okay, we should have known where we were staying, being the seasoned travelers we were. But if a hotel has six locations in the same market, shouldn’t they give their guests some way of identifying which location they are staying at?

On the other hand, what would you expect from a hotel chain that doesn’t even know how to spell the word “Blue.”