Really Annoyed By Marketing Tactics

Stranded

From time to time, I have mentioned in these humble writings some of the guests at the hotel where I work, and in particular how some of them tend to be late for a scheduled departure of the hotel shuttle van to the airport.  But these are not the only guests that can be late.  There are also those guests who are left stranded because the group they were traveling with left them behind when they failed to show up for a scheduled departure..

Consider, for example, a group of Chinese Tourists that stayed with us this past Spring.  After several days of sightseeing, their tour guide checked them all out of their rooms and loaded them and their luggage on the tour bus.  But the final head count didn't add up.  It seems that three elderly gentlemen were missing.

Of course, the tour guide went to their rooms looking for them while I walked the grounds checking to see if they might have decided to sit on a bench under a tree to just take in the nice weather we were enjoying.  Neither the guide nor I could find the three missing tourists, and he (the guide) began to get very concerned, because nor of the three missing men could speak a word of English.  The driver in the mean time was waiting to leave for their next destination.

Finally, after many phone calls to who knows where or to whom, the guide was at the point of giving up, so I asked him for a number I could call if his three charges showed up.  He gave it to me, and the bus left our parking lot, an hour late, and I went about my business of shuttling other guests to and from the airport.

Two hours after the tour bus left, I arrived back from one of my shuttle runs to find three very confused, elderly, Chinese men sitting in the lobby looking as lost as any souls I have ever encountered.  Naturally I immediately called the number I had gotten from the tour guide and tried to convey to the three that help would arrive in about 45 minutes to an hour.  I did so by holding up fingers and by pointing to my watch etc.  I guess I got through to them because they smiled and nodded their heads and very patiently sat in the lobby and waited for their help to arrive.

Soon enough, someone showed up to "claim" the three and after smiling and nodding to me, they were driven away, but with what was now a three hour start, the bus was too far ahead of them to have any hope of catching up with it.  Even if they phoned the bus driver and he delayed his departure at the next couple of bio breaks and the lunch break, it would still be hard to over take the bus before evening, so I assume the men were taken to the airport and put on a plane for the closest airport to the bus's stop for the evening.  I further assume that arrangements were made for someone to meet their plane and drive them to their hotel. 

I can't really say.  Nor can I say where the three had disappeared to.  Had they just decided to go for a walk around area?  Who knows.  But the fact is that they caused a great deal of consternation and worry for the company providing for the group and their fellow travelers, not to mention all the added expense. 

I'm sorry to say that this is not an isolated case of tourists getting lost.  It happens all the time.  I had to put one French woman, who also spoke no English, in touch with her embassy to get help for her, but that's another story.

Folks, schedules exist for a reason.  You should always try to adhere to them, but all the more so in a foreign country where you don't speak the language and your welfare is, therefore, dependent solely on the intelligence and kindness of the people around you.  I've been in some areas of the world where being separated from your group is not something you want to be.  But if you don't care about yourself, do it just to show some courtesy, thoughtfulness, and respect for your fellow travelers.

Enough Already

Anyone See Anything Wrong With This?

At a time when unemployment in this country is running in double digits, the "China State Construction Engineering Corp, the largest contractor in China, has bagged a subway ventilation project worth about $100 million in New York's Manhattan area, marking the construction giant's third order in the United States' infrastructure space this year....

"The new project, along with the $410-million Hamilton Bridge project and a $1.7-billion entertainment project it won earlier this year, signals China State Construction's ambition to tap the American construction market....

"In the first three quarters of this year, the Chinese construction giant signed more than $2 billion worth of contracts in the US market," according to an article in The China Daily.

What about putting American American companies back to work?

Climategate: The Greatest Science Scandal In Modern Times

"If you own any shares in alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW."  That's what is being revealed this day as the result of a hacker breaking into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka Hadley CRU) in England and releasing the 160 megabytes of files taken, including 1079 emails and 72 documents, onto the internet.  They reveal "Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure [of evidence supporting global cooling], manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more."

..."The tide is turning against Al Gore’s Anthropogenic Global Warming theory.  The so-called “sceptical” view is now also the majority view.  Unfortunately, we’ve a long, long way to go before the public mood (and scientific truth) is reflected by our policy makers. There are too many vested interests in AGW, with far too much to lose either in terms of reputation or money, for this to end without a bitter fight."

The Cap 'n' Trade issue may now take a new turn, especially in light of Senator Inhofe's call this day for a congressional investigation into the scientific integrity of the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  I can only hope that this will slow down the Obama administration's race to increase our cost of energy through higher taxes and limitations on use.