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America’s luxury hotels on the brink

WorldOct 30. 2020Bartender Diego Trujillo is seen through plexiglass in the lounge of the St. Regis Hotel, one of Washington’s few luxury hotels that has not closed during the pandemic. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Matt McClain 

By The Washington Post · Jonathan O’Connell · BUSINESS, TRAVEL 
Traditionally at this time of year, staff at America’s luxury hotels are beginning their work as modern-day elves, preparing lobby decorations, cocktail menus, toy giveaways and light displays as they ready themselves for a season full of holiday parties, winter weddings and New Year’s Eve festivities.

Montserrat Murillo, left, and Eugenia Gonzalez in the reception area at the St. Regis in Washington D.C.. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Matt McClain.

This year the season won’t carry the same cheer. Landmark hotels, which have long served as downtown gathering places and backdrops for the holiday season, are eerily, strangely vacant, having lost well over half their business and told most of their staff that they are not needed.

The bar at the St. Regis in Washington, three blocks north of the White House and surrounded by elite law firms, has no way of drawing thirsty office workers – they are nearly all at home.

Across town at the Four Seasons in Georgetown, staff would normally be preparing for an influx of Hollywood celebrities in December as part of the Kennedy Center Honors, but the event has been canceled. The staff, a quarter of the size it used to be, is trying to find a safe way to still serve its traditional Thanksgiving dinner to first responders.

“Is this the year to forget them?” said General Manager David Bernand. “I don’t think so.”

Those are among the country’s top hotels that have remained open throughout the pandemic. Others haven’t reopened, and some never will. The hotel industry was the first to be hit by the economic fallout of the pandemic and may take the longest to recover, with estimates from industry analysts ranging from four to 10 years.

With no end in sight for the pandemic and calls for Congress to deliver more stimulus funds going unanswered, big-city officials and many in the tourism industry are wondering what will become of the country’s marquee properties.

Of all hotels, luxury hotels have been among the hardest hit. What truly separates them from the competition – distinctive, personalized service – is difficult to deliver when guests check in and out through an app on their phones and rarely stop in the lobby. Masks hide the staff’s eager smiles. In-room services such as fresh towels and dining have been reconfigured, but it’s difficult to replace offerings like the St. Regis butler service, in which staff unpack guests’ luggage, serve them coffee and open their curtains in the morning.

“The biggest difficulty is making sure we distinguish ourselves with our service,” said Winfred van Workum, general manager of the St. Regis. “If you buy a Rolls-Royce you don’t want it to run like a Toyota.”

St. Regis staff spent the first few weeks of the pandemic fielding cancellations and rescheduling calls from event, convention and wedding planners. Business events are gone altogether; the weddings that were rescheduled from spring to fall are now being rescheduled for 2021 or 2022. Since the D.C. government continues to limit group events to 50 people, the St. Regis recently separated a wedding into two events to remain in compliance.

“The first dance they have to do twice so everyone can see it,” said Ramon von Schukkmann, director of sales and marketing.

Another couple decided to do a Zoom wedding in their room. “It’s just the two of them in front of a large TV and a microphone,” he said.

As if the pandemic was not enough, the city’s Black Lives Matter protests occurred right outside the front doors of the St. Regis, prompting neighboring businesses to board up their storefronts. As the protests continued, D.C. Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser renamed the street. The hotel’s address is now 923 Black Lives Matter Plaza.

But the St. Regis is open, which is more than many other high-end properties can say. About three-quarters of luxury hotel rooms in New York City remained closed in September, according to data from STR, a research firm.Some owners of hotels surrounding Times Square, lacking Broadway or Madison Square Garden crowds, have thrown in the towel. After nearly 100 years in operation, the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown – backdrop to “The Irishman” and a dozen other films – closed its doors permanently. Owners of the 44-story Hilton Times Square hotel announced that they were closing it without plans to reopen.

Experts expect the cascade of casualties to continue. Luxury hotels were only 9.2% occupied in April, an 88% drop from the year before. Occupancy slowly crept up, to 37% in August and 36% in September, but that still amounts to a disaster. Revenue overall was still down 59% in September, STR said.

“Luxury hotels in a city, their business historically has been far more business-oriented and also a fair amount of group business,” said Anne R. Lloyd-Jones, senior managing director and director of consulting and valuation of the consulting firm HVS. “That’s what’s not happening now.”

With losses piling up, some owners who borrowed heavily to acquire their properties can’t make their loan payments, no matter how well their shorthanded staffs are able to make do. In Chicago, the 1,600-room Palmer House Hilton, where Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong and other legends once played the ballroom, shut it doors after its bank sued its owner. In D.C., Marriott sued the owners of the Marriott Wardman Park hotel, alleging that the real estate investors who own the property are trying to convert it into a residential building and asked them to make improvements instead.

Lloyd-Jones estimates that the values of hotels will fall between 20% and 35% this year. Refinancing hotels that are falling behind may not be easy, because of how sensitive they are to the whims of the virus; when a rise in infections occurs, most companies and apartment tenants pay their rent. Hotel guests don’t show up, meaning there is no revenue. Meanwhile, ownership has to continue paying staff to keep the hotel open.

“It just makes it the riskiest of the property types by far,” said Mark Eppli, a University of Wisconsin business professor.

The biggest losers in the collapse of the industry aren’t the banks or the borrowers but the employees, well over 2 million of whom are out of work. Three out of 10 hotel employees in the country remain furloughed or laid off, according to the American Hotel and Lodging Association, putting hotel workers in the grim company of airline and restaurant employees. Millions more could lose their jobs as more than two-thirds of hotels told the group recently that they will last only another six months barring further relief.

The list of layoffs reported to the D.C. government shows deep cuts at nearly all the city’s high-end hotels: 182 layoffs from the Hay-Adams, 237 from the Trump International, 351 from the W, 359 from the Conrad, 361 from the Ritz, and 426 from the Mayflower.

Those who are still at work are often doing multiple jobs – parking cars, carrying bags, cleaning rooms – and allowing smartphone apps to do what they can’t. If that becomes the new normal, it could mean permanent job losses. John Boardman, executive secretary and treasurer of the Unite Here’s D.C. affiliate, likened it to when fuel shortages in the 1970s led service stations to eliminate jobs and let customers pump their own gas.

“There’s a real cultural shift in terms of the industry trying to change the expectations of customers in order to reduce employment,” Boardman said.

At the Four Seasons in Georgetown there used to be a staff of 400. Now there are 100, with 200 on furlough and 100 gone. Ownership has continued paying for benefits for furloughed staff and management has tried to keep people’s spirits up, creating a GoFundMe platform to provide food for staff who have lost their jobs, Bernand said. During toilet paper shortages, the hotel provided rolls to displaced staff at low cost. They will send them turkeys on Thanksgiving.

They will do something for the winter holidays as well, but they’re still working out the details. For an industry that prides itself on anticipating exactly what is needed next, everything about the pandemic is disorienting, Bernand said.

“It’s very hard to be predictive when so much that has happened has been unprecedented,” he said.

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‘Very nice’: Kazakhstan makes ‘Borat’ catchphrase its official tourism slogan

WorldOct 28. 2020“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.” MUST CREDIT: Courtesy of Amazon Studios 

By The Washington Post · Shannon McMahon · BUSINESS, FEATURES, TRAVEL 
Almost 14 years after Kazakhstan banned the original “Borat” film for its negative depiction of Kazakhs, the nation’s tourism board is adopting the catchphrase of fictional character Borat Sagdiyev as a new slogan: “Very nice.” 

In a tourism advertisement that those who haven’t seen the “Borat” movies might not recognize as anything other than a dreamy collection of travel footage, Kazakh Tourism works the words of fictional TV journalist Borat into several snapshots of the country’s travel offerings.

“It’s a place you may have heard of, that’s nicer than you ever imagined. Where you can find endless steppe, sand, and epic mountain peaks just a short drive from a modern metropolis,” the tourism board says in the description of its new commercial. “How can you describe a place this surprising in just two words? As a wise man one [sic] said, ‘Very nice!'”

The campaign is in stark contrast with Kazakhs’ prior and current disdain for the film. In 2006, the original “Borat” film was railed against by the Kazakh government, which threatened to sue creator Sacha Baron Cohen and took out a four-page ad in the New York Times arguing against the film.

“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” was released on Amazon Prime on Oct. 23.

The Kazakh tourism board is handling things differently now, by turning the 2020 movie into a valuable campaign for tourism: The ad was conceptualized by an American expat in Kazakhstan who aimed “to take the publicity created by a comedian and turn it to a positive message,” according to the New York Times.

But this time around, Kazakhs are still angry. The Kazakh American Association last week called upon Amazon in an open letter to cancel its release of the second “Borat” film, which the association said is racist and “bullies and traumatizes a nation comprised of people of color.” (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

“Why is our small nation fair game for public ridicule?” the Kazakh American Association asked in the letter.

Cohen, the comedian who wrote the movies and stars as Borat, answered in the New York Times article this week.

“This is a comedy, and the Kazakhstan in the film has nothing to do with the real country,” Cohen told the newspaper. “I chose Kazakhstan because it was a place that almost nobody in the U.S. knew anything about, which allowed us to create a wild, comedic, fake world. The real Kazakhstan is a beautiful country with a modern, proud society – the opposite of Borat’s version.” 

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Triumph at 29,000 feet: Everest has seen over 6,500 footfalls since 1953 https://tkpo.st/3lThHQ1

WorldOct 18. 2020An undated photo shows a queue of climbers making a final push towards Everest summit. Photo courtesy: Kami Rita Sherpa 

By Kathmandu Post

In recent years summit hopefuls have been growing since the tragedy on the mountain in 2014 and its closure following the 2015 earthquake.

A total of 6,507 mountaineers have climbed Everest from the Nepal side since Tenzing Norgay Sherpa and New Zealander Edmund Percival Hillary first set foot atop the world’s highest peak in May 1953.

This and other figures are contained in the latest annual mountaineering statistics published by the Tourism Ministry on Tuesday. Among the 6,507 summiteers, 471 are female, with Junko Tabei of Japan being the first to make it to the top in 1975.

The 8,848-metre (29,028 feet) Evereststraddles Nepal and China and the summit can be reached from both countries. It costs less to climb from the Chinese side since the royalty is less than Nepal’s $11,000 per person and also because there is a motorable road up to the base camp.

Nepal’s Tourism Ministry started collecting details of events on Everest dating from 1922 when seven Sherpa climbers died in an avalanche, becoming the first reported deaths on the tallest mountain in the world.

This year, Covid-19 kept all expeditions away, the second time in recent years. There were no expeditions in 2015 following the April earthquake.

Last year was significant in terms of records set on the world’s tallest peak. According to the ministry, there were five record-setting events for 2019.

On May 22 and 23, a total of 223 and 212 climbers reached the summit, which has been recorded as the highest and the second-highest number of climbers on the top of Everest on a particular day.

That year, the government issued a record number of permits, leading to ‘traffic jams’ on the icy route to the top of the world. Also, 10 people died, the highest death toll in four years.

Kami Rita Sherpa climbed Everest twice within a week, on May 15 and 21, giving him the distinction of having made the highest number of Everest ascents in the world–24.

The ministry said that the Sagarmatha Height Measurement Expedition 2019 team, led by chief survey officer Khimlal Gautam of the government of Nepal, climbed Everest on May 22 and installed scientific equipment on the summit. The government is yet to announce the height of Everest.

Nirmal Purja has climbed all 14 mountains above 8,000 metres in the record time of 6 months and 6 days and became the fastest person to do so.

Ministry records show that Mingma Gyabu Sherpa climbed all 14 mountains above 8,000 metres at the age of 31 years, becoming the youngest person to do so.

The success rate of climbers has been improving since 2016. A total of 451 mountaineers, including 197 foreigners, reached the top of Everest in 2016 after the peak saw no climbers in 2015, the year when Nepal was hit by a devastating earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 people. Quake-triggered avalanches killed 20 climbers.

On April 18, 2014, there was an avalanche near Everest base camp which killed 16 Nepali guides. Rescuers pulled out 13 bodies and the remaining three were never recovered as search and rescue operations were called off due to too much risk.

The first post-avalanche ascent took place on May 23, 2014, when Chinese climber Wang Jing along with five Nepali climbing guides reached the summit of Everest. However, her ascent was marked by controversy as she flew over the Khumbu Icefall in a helicopter instead of crossing it on foot.

High-altitude climbing guides had cancelled all their planned expeditions to pay respect for their dead colleagues.

But Wang completed her climb with five guides that were arranged privately. The Department of Tourism had also issued the climbing permit as a challenge to the guides who decided to boycott the expedition. The disaster had brought a simmering tension between the government and the climbing guides as the government did not pay heed to their demands.

Following the disaster, the government had promptly announced a payment of Rs40,000 to the victims’ families to cover funeral costs. However, high-altitude guides and workers were angered by the government’s paltry handout offer which led them to intensify their protest.

In 2017, a total of 426 climbers, including 199 foreigners, made it to the top, slightly fewer than in 2016. The number of summiteers rose significantly in 2018 when 560 individuals, including 262 foreigners, reached the top. This record was broken in 2019 when a crowd of 644 mountaineers, including 280 foreigners, stepped on top of the world.

“As the allure of Everest has grown, so have the crowds,” said Ang Tsering Sherpa, former president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association. According to him, the number of Everest aspirants in Nepal started to swell from 2007 when China started issuing Everest climbing certificates stating the height as 8,844.57 metres while Nepal issued certificates saying 8,848 metres.

The lower height was not recognised by various international organisations, Sherpa said.

“It’s not expensive to climb from the north side, and the process of obtaining a climbing permit is also easy,” said Sherpa, adding that before 2007, the north face used to see a large number of climbers.

Sherpa said that since 2016, China started issuing climbing permits stating the height as 8,848.13 metres.

Nepal and China will be clearing any confusion about the actual elevation soon by jointly announcing the height of Everest.

“However, climbing from Nepal has become more adventurous, and people love it instead of just climbing the peak and going home, making the number of summit hopefuls rise every passing year,” he said.

He was referring to the fact that while on the Chinese side, mountaineers drive up the base camp, on the Nepal side the allure begins as they land at Lukla airport from where they have to trek 10 days to the base camp.

The situation next year, with the climbing season slated to begin in spring 2021, will depend on what turn the Covid-19 pandemic takes.

“There are inquiries,” said Sherpa. “Even though Everest will be open, there won’t be many climbers because of the economic factor. People don’t have money, and climbing Everest is an expensive affair.”

Foreigners pay $11,000 to obtain a permit to climb Everest and spend anywhere between $40,000 and $90,000 for the entire expedition. In 2019, the government earned $5.07 million in royalties from the issuance of climbing permits. Out of the total revenue, Everest accounted for $4.05 million.

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On the road to ancient Srihatta

WorldOct 11. 2020Beyond public knowledge, Panchakhanda Basudeva Angan, a 1,000-year-old temple in Supatala village of Sylhet’s Beanibazar, houses two more statues — one of a Dhyani (meditating left bottom) Buddha and another of a Garudashin Vishnu (Lord Vishnu sitting or riding on Garuda, a mythical bird-like creature) — alongside one Basudeva statue. Photo: Tarun Sarker, Sagar Das Chowdhury 

By The Daily Star

Two ages-old statues found in Sylhet temple open new avenue of study

As per the record, Panchakhanda Basudeva Angan, a millennium-old temple in Supatala village of Sylhet’s Beanibazar, housed only a Basudeva statue.  

Beyond public knowledge, however, two more unrecorded ancient statues are kept in the historic temple.

During a visit to the temple in late June, the statues of a Dhyani (meditating) Buddha and a Garudashin Vishnu (Lord Vishnu sitting or riding on Garuda, a mythical bird-like creature) were found.

The Basudeva statue, depicting Lord Vishnu in Samapadasthanak posture in which the feet are firmly arid squarely planted, was mentioned in various journals while the two other statues remained unheard of.

In Achyut Charan Choudhury’s book “Srihatter Itibritta”, some publications of Bangladesh Asiatic Society, and a memorandum published by the temple in 2006 state that there is only the Basudeva statue in the temple.

But the expedition found all three statues are kept in the Sri-Mandir of the Panchakhanda Basudeva Angan and being worshiped.

Finding of the Dhyani Buddha proves the existence of Mahayana Buddhist while the Garudashin Vishnu is the only statue of its type to be found in the region.

Two neighbourng villages, Supatala and Nidhanpur, under Panchakhanda Pargana of ancient Srihatta, are very much known to historians and archaeologists. These places are crucial for understanding the ancient time of greater Sylhet.

In Nidhanpur, which is in the vicinity of the temple, seven copperplate inscriptions of early 7th century Kamrupa King Bhaskaravarman were found in 1912.

More than 200 Brahmins were made Jamindars through these copperplates.

Dwarkesh Chandra Nath, president of Basudeva Sebak Sangha, the managing authority of the temple, said, “In the copperplates, seven percent of total land granted was meant for some religious rituals related to idol worship. The temple might have been established Centring the rituals.”

Several ancient idols were found in ponds of Supatala village.

DHYANI BUDDHA STATUE

The Dhyani Buddha statue was found along with the Basudeva and the Mahamaya (Durga) statues in the early 19th century while digging a pond of Durgadalai’s house in Supatala.

In the book “Srihatter Itibritta”, Achyut Charan Choudhury cited that Durgadalai was an employee of the last Jaintia King Rajendra Singha.

Durgadalai gifted the Mahamaya statue to the king while Basudeva statue was restored in the temple. These happened before 1835 as the king died that year in British captivity, the book mentioned.

The miniature statue of Buddha seated and meditating is 4 inches tall and 2.5 inches wide. The face and back are damaged and left hand is broken.

Swadhin Sen, professor of the Department of Archaeology at Jahangirnagar University, and Mosharraf Hossain, former director of the government’s Department of Archaeology, said the statue was one of Panchatathagata — the five Tathagatas or five great Buddhas.

Though the left hand is broken, seeing the pose of right hand, they opine that the hands are posing as a representation of Dharma Chakra (Wheel of Dharma). 

According to the Buddhist explanation of Panchatathagata, this pose is the Vairocana, the principal deity or mediator. Other Dhyani Buddhas are Amoghasiddhi, Amitabha, Ratnasambhava and Akshobhya.

Swadhin Sen said it might be of 8th-12th century while Mosharraf Hossain opine of 12th-13th century.

Historian Himadri Das Purkayastha said, “During 9th-10th century, Mahayana Buddhists, particularly of Vajrayana belief, were influential in greater Sylhet. Finding the statue is the archaeological proof of the Mahayana Buddhism’s practice in the region”.

THE GARUDASHIN VISHNU

The Garudashin Vishnu statue was found in 1982 while digging pond of the temple.

According to Hindu Triad or Great Trinity, Vishnu represents goodness and preservation.

In ancient and medieval period, Vishnu statues are found in different forms and names — of different count of hands. His Basudeva forms are common in Bangladesh, while the Garudashin form is rare.

Archaeologist Mosharraf Hossain said, “Among more than six hundred Vishnu statues found in Bangladesh, only seven are of Garudashin Vishnu. It’s a rare antiquity. This particular statue looks older compared to others”.

The statue is of 2.7 feet tall and 1.2 foot in width. The four handed statue clock-wisely holds club, wheel, conch and lotus.

In this statue, Vishnu is seated on the Garuda with his feet on the hands of the mythical creature. The Garuda is posing to start flying with one leg on top of lotus and another in the ground with bended knee.

Niru Shamsun Nahar, former keeper of Bangladesh National Museum, said, “The statue doesn’t look still, but very lively. Carved in stone with excellent efficiency and of exact ratio. It’s a work of a master sculptor”.

“A unique sculpting method flourished in Bangla-Bihar region by 8th-13th century and 10th-11th century as the golden era of sculpting. This statue represents the features of the golden era and I think it’s of that era,” she said.

THE STATUES: IMPORTANCE AND CONSERVATION

As the Panchakhanda Basudeva Angan is dedicated to lord Vishnu, the Garudashin Vishnu statue is being worshipped along with the Basudeva statue.

The Buddha statue is also being worshipped as an idol of Narayana.

Swadhin Sen said, “The idols are very important in terms of their find-spots and location, as the Nidhanpur copperplate inscriptions are found in the area.

“The time of issuance of the inscriptions and the stylistic date on these idols are not same. Two idols of Vishnu belong to a later date, tentatively to 11th-12th century. They, however, points at the continuous occupation of this area of Barak-Surma Valley from 8th-12th century.”

In contrary to the practice of collecting and displaying such religious statues in the museums, he said, “These are an essential part of living religious traditions as they are being worshipped. These valuable archaeological objects must be kept in the temple and their ownership by the local community must be protected.”

[Tarun Sarker is a freelance journalist who writes for The Daily Star. Translated by Dwoha Chowdhury]

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Japan, Vietnam set to allow short-term business travel

WorldOct 11. 2020

By Syndication Washington Post, The Japan News-Yomiuri · No Author · WORLD, ASIA-PACIFIC 

TOKYO – The Japanese and Vietnamese governments are set to come to an agreement to allow businesspeople to resume traveling between the two countries for short work-related trips as early as this month, it has been learned.

This will be the third country in which the Japanese government has allowed short-term visitors to travel back-and-forth, following Singapore and South Korea. 

The government plans to exempt these travelers from the 14-day quarantine if they meet the following requirements: They are tested for the coronavirus prior to departure and upon arrival; they provide their itinerary in advance; and they only travel to work-related locations.

The two sides are also considering agreeing to a summit meeting when Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga makes his first overseas trip to Vietnam in the middle of the month. 

Japan and Vietnam have strong economic ties, and as of 2019, there are 1,943 Japanese companies operating in Vietnam, double what it was 10 years ago. There were also about 40,000 business travelers from Vietnam in 2019, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization.

The number of coronavirus cases in Vietnam has not exceeded one per day since the beginning of the month, which has led the Japanese government to make its latest decision. 

“The environment is ready for the resumption of travel,” a senior government official said.