Indian Hotels demands apology from Orient Express

20 December 2007

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.