Vir Sanghvi’s “Much room for error” argues that even high-end hotels can make a stay needlessly difficult through missed housekeeping, fussy check-ins, dim and confusing rooms, awkward TV setup and unclear transport costs. It is a first-person critique—not a survey or ranking of hotels—and its examples should be read as the columnist’s experiences, not as industry-wide rates.
Published by Hindustan Times in HT Brunch, the column is dated October 2, 2026; the page says it was updated at 16:13 IST that day, while its footer identifies it as being from HT Brunch, October 3, 2026. Sanghvi says he discussed hotel service with Marriott general managers at JW Marriott Golfshire after an invitation from Khushnooma Kapadia, and with ITC general managers at Delhi’s Maurya Hotel after an invitation from Richa Sharma. Those are details as reported by the columnist, not an independent comparison of the properties. Read the column in Hindustan Times.
Housekeeping is the central complaint
Sanghvi’s main frustration is the gap between a room that has been serviced and one that is actually ready for the next stretch of a guest’s day. He describes missed cleaning, cups and glasses not being replaced, coffee machines left without supplies, and personal possessions moved out of sight. He also says that, in his experience, a hand shower is left selected after the bathtub has been cleaned “eight times out of 10.” That number is his own estimate, not a measured hotel-service rate.
The practical point is that small oversights can make a room feel less cared for even when the major tasks have been done. A guest may have to search for moved items, request basic replacements or check a shower setting before use. The column offers examples of Sanghvi’s experience; it does not establish how frequently these problems occur across hotels.
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Check-in should not make a tired arrival work harder
Sanghvi prefers a quick, useful check-in over scripted conversation. He relays British restaurateur Jeremy King’s objection to routine travel questions: “I hate to be asked whether I have had a good journey.” The quote is reported by Sanghvi; no independent transcript is cited.
King’s point, as presented in the column, is that reception should know whether someone is a returning guest and avoid questions a guest has not chosen to answer. The desired interaction is attentive rather than impersonal, but it should not require a tired arrival to perform small talk before getting to the room.
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Room controls should be obvious in practice
The column challenges the assumption that an expensive room is automatically easy to use. Sanghvi criticizes dim lighting, switches that are difficult to locate, and a master switch that may also turn off the bathroom light. He also finds shower and bath controls unnecessarily complicated.
His standard is straightforward: guests should be able to see where they are going and understand the controls without trial and error. A room that looks atmospheric in photographs can be inconvenient when its lighting is too low for ordinary tasks or its switches are hard to identify.
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A working streaming connection matters more than a long channel list
Sanghvi says he would rather stream personal content than browse live television, and complains that mirroring a device or signing into a streaming service can be difficult in some hotels. He estimates that a technician took 15 minutes to work out a TV setup in one instance. He also refers rhetorically to hotel television offering “54 channels in 12 languages”; this is his description, not an independently verified count of hotel offerings.
The criticism is less about the number of channels than about whether a guest can use the screen without a technical detour. The column does not claim that every hotel’s streaming setup fails, or compare particular systems.
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Confirm transport charges before accepting a hotel car
For one hotel-arranged trip, Sanghvi recounts being charged ₹30,000 including taxes under an arrangement with a five-hour minimum. He describes the destination as about 20 minutes away. These figures belong to that single anecdote and should not be treated as typical hotel-car prices.
The useful lesson for a guest is to ask for the total charge and the billing basis before agreeing: for example, whether the price reflects a minimum booking period rather than only the time spent travelling. Sanghvi also mentions phone-charge inflation and past regulatory intervention, but gives no regulator, rule or date; the column therefore does not establish the applicable legal position.
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What the column does—and does not—show
“Much room for error” is an argument about everyday service design: housekeeping should finish the details, check-in should respect a guest’s time, controls should make sense, entertainment should be usable, and car pricing should be clear before a booking is accepted. Its evidence is Sanghvi’s own observations and reported conversations. It does not rank the named hotels, test their services systematically or show that these problems are representative of Indian hotels or luxury properties generally.
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