“The Mystery Shopper” is the first “Hotel Story” set in the Caravanserai Ultra-Platinum, the coolest, most ecological and most luxurious hotel on earth.
The Mystery Shopper
The Mystery Shopper is the sixth Hotel Story published and the 11th in chronological order.
In The Mystery Shopper, former desk clerk Tatiana is, for the first time, in charge of her own hotel – the Caravanserai Ultra Platinum. The Caravanserai is the coolest, most ecological and most exotic hotel on earth. Yet for reasons Tatiana cannot understand, it is losing money. When HQ sends a “Mystery Shopper” to assess the hotel, Tatiana calls in Ms N, the world’s most brilliant, unpredictable and occasionally homicidal hotel manager, to unravel a mystery that threatens the lives of some of the hotel’s most distinguished visitors.
A sample of the story is below.
Seven Hotel Stories
The Mystery Shopper (Excerpt)
I am afraid.
Has Ms N misjudged me? Is the challenge she has set me too great? Can it be that I have not learned her lesson always to convert challenges into opportunities?
From the panoramic window of my dear Caravanserai Ultra Platinum hotel, I look out at the great orange ball of the sun, gradually sinking over the snow-capped peaks in the distance. Below, in the valley, the shadows of the ancient arches and towers that strew the relic-covered plain grow longer and melt into darkness as the light fades.
Behind me, customers pack the Sunset Bar, a glass-clinking din of joy echoing from the hand-hewn walls and ceiling as if this is perhaps the greatest hotel on earth.
They think everything is perfect.
They are as wrong as they can be.
Ms N’s endorsement helped me, Tatiana, become General Manager of the coolest, the most luxurious and the most ecological hotel on earth, located in the remotest, wildest and ruggedest corner of my beautiful but still economically backward country.
I should be celebrating my success. Instead, I stand alone at the window, staring into the darkness.
No-one said it would be easy, running my first hotel as General Manager. Yet the Caravanserai Ultra Platinum is failing more utterly than I could have imagined – and I do not know why.
Today I learned that the customer satisfaction of my beloved Caravanserai is so bad that our Houston HQ has sent a “mystery shopper” to visit. This woman, or man, posing as a guest, will test our service and standards, and suggest improvements.
I am afraid that the easiest thing to improve will be to change the General Manager.
What would Ms N do in this situation? I stand up straight, square my shoulders, roll my neck and clench and unclench my fingers. It is time to turn this challenge into an opportunity.
*
Two days later I am in my office, staring in horror at the hotel’s financial forecasts on my computer, when a knock comes on the door.
Scarlett, the Guest Services Manager, pokes her head inside. She is one of the first staff I recruited after I arrived, and if I am honest I am proud of my choice. She is not only smart, but brilliant. She is not merely attractive, but beautiful. Brilliant, beautiful women are desirable in hotels. Since Scarlett arrived, we have introduced many valuable innovations. Now, she purses her bright red, bee-stung lips and raises her manicured eyebrows.
‘You have a visitor,’ she says. ‘May I show her in?’
I stand, relieved to set aside the financial forecasts. I smile at Scarlett, with her alert eyes and elegant poise, and feel a moment of hope. What a hotel this could be!
The door swings open. Scarlett stands to one side, her arm outstretched. ‘This is madam’s room,’ she says. ‘Please enter.’
‘Ms N!’ I open my arms and step forward.
‘Tatiana!’ Ms N embraces me. ‘How are you?’
I try to say I am pleased to see her, but my words are swallowed in her dark hair as her strong arms squeeze me. Behind her Scarlett, alert to my needs, closes my office door to give us privacy.
I step back to admire the most brilliant hotelier on earth.
Ms N’s shoulders are slumped. Although her eyes are as bright as ever, they have bags under them as if, perhaps, she has not been sleeping for a long time. Her skin, though smooth, is perhaps not quite so velvety as usual. Although her mouth is set in the kind of inquisitive smile that makes me wonder whether she is already working here in the Caravanserai Ultra Platinum, she looks like she needs ten hours of sleep, or a stiff drink, or a cup of tea, or all three of these.
Ms N fishes from her pocket a miraculously fresh white tissue.
‘Tatiana,’ she says. ‘Do not cry.’
‘But I am doing everything you taught me. I want it to be perfect. Yet my Caravanserai UP is failing.’
‘Nothing is perfect, darling. The best any of us can do is to create the illusion of perfection. Once a single customer sees behind the curtain and realises that all is not as it seems, the whole thing may go up in a puff of smoke.’
‘In a few months,’ I say, ‘I have turned the best hotel on earth into a shitbox that loses money. Now I have forced you to travel for sixteen hours on three separate and perhaps not entirely modern or safe airlines to reach this most remote corner of my beautiful country to try and help me. You must be exhausted. But at least our amenities are good.’ I reach into the cupboard behind me. ‘Would you like to try on a pair of our complimentary, locally-sourced, hand-woven, virgin-combed, glacier-cured mohair moccasins? We have a choice of natural and hypoallergenic.’
Ms N slumps into a chair and kicks off her shoes. ‘I adore the ecological vibe you have going on here. I’ll try the slippers with pleasure. And it’s true both that part of the charm of this hotel is that it’s hard to get here from London, and that I am a little tired.’
‘Let me pour you a glass of water.’ I reach for the artisan-sourced, hand-cast, sun-dried, straw-fired locally-thrown earthenware water jug behind me and fill a glass.
Ms N peers at the handwritten message baked into the jug’s glaze and bursts into laughter. ‘Seriously? “This water is precisely room-temperature”?
‘It is.’
‘Perfect.’ Ms N drains her glass. ‘Low-tech; ecological; tongue-in-cheek; and, best of all, dirt-cheap. Let me tell you. This hotel is a paradise.’
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘But you are going to tell me that every paradise contains a serpent.’
‘That may be true,’ Ms N says. ‘I must tell you about the oddest experience I had when I checked in. But first things first. Is your mystery shopper here yet?’
‘I don’t know. But I fear him, or her. Our survey results are worse than the Happy Yak, the only other hotel in this mountain range.’
Ms N nods. ‘The Happy Yak. Cute name. Is it another five-star hotel, like the Caravanserai UP? Or is it something cheap and cheerful? A four-star, for example?’
‘No.’ My lips quiver as I speak. ‘Rooms in The Happy Yak cost only $25 a night, and it has no stars at all.’
Ms N rises to her feet, and holds out another fresh white tissue. ‘It seems to me,’ she says, ‘that we had better start work right away if we are to solve the problems of the hotel before our mystery shopper makes his, or her, report.’
‘Do you not wish to rest first?’
‘I shall rest later. First, show me everything.’ She stands and sways for a moment, moving her small feet to steady herself. ‘I am ready.’
[Excerpt ends]
What to do next
If you would like to read The Mystery Shopper, click on the link below. I hope you enjoy it.
