Stung by tone and tenor of Orient Express Hotels' president and CEO Paul M White's letter turning down the Tata Group hotel chain's suggestion for an alliance between the two, Indian Hotels has demanded an apology as it found the of the letter letter to be ''pejorative, inaccurate and libelous''.

The spat between the two hospitality majors started after White wrote to the Indian Hotel chain refusing to be associated with any Indian brand.

White's letter is reported to have said, ''We believe any association of our luxury brands and properties with your brands and properties would result in a reduction in the value of our brands and of our business and would likely lead to erosion in the RevPar premiums currently achieved by our properties.''

Responding to the offending wordage, R K Krishna Kumar, vice chairman, Indian Hotels Company, said, "We ask the Orient Express Hotels to publish a formal apology to the Taj Hotels using the same channel that it had used to publish its letter to the Taj Hotels.''

A few months ago Indian hotels bought a 10 per cent stake in Orient Express and asked for an alliance. It was turned down by the Orient Express management (See: Orient-Express turns down Taj group overtures). The Tata company bought another 1.5 per cent and asked for an alliance again - this time it was rejected rudely.

Kumar clarified that while the group had explored an alliance, it did not need to be associated with the US group to improve its profitability, as claimed by White.In his missive, Kumar said that Taj Hotels was ''a proud Indian company'' and would persist with its global expansion strategy.

Kumar also said that the language and tone of the Orient Express letter was highly misinformed and "unduly aggressive".  He said the Taj Hotels has earned a reputation as one of the world's most trusted brands in hospitality.

According to CNBC-TV18's Maneka Doshi, the point-by-point rebuttal by the Taj chain to Orient Express is:

• Taj Hotels insists it never suggested a merger. It does not need Orient's help to improve the performance of its non-Indian properties
• Orient has gaps in its network in New York and London that could have been filled by Taj
• That, the association would not reduce the value of Orient's properties, because Taj enjoys a higher room occupancy rate compared to Orient and that it's trailing EBIDTA margin is 15 per cent more than that of Orient's
• That, contrary to Orient's allegation Taj does not re-brand all acquired hotels as 'Taj'
• Taj believes Orient Hotels has not met it's shareholders needs, nor does it respect the basic tenets of corporate governance as it has refused to enter into any meaningful dialogue on an alliance with Taj

Indian Hotels says many Orient shareholders have made advances to meet, but the company has honourably declined them. The punch line at the end of Taj's letter, Doshi says, reads, "We believe that those with a fossilized frame of mind risk being marginalized."