RubyConf India – Hospitality was anything but pleasant at The Lalit Goa

I've run events like this for over 10 years now, a couple pointers;

* Negotiate payment terms that require a deposit, but for which the balance is paid after the event.

* Always have a meeting with hotel management pre-event, review the contract, make sure everything is correct.

* Double Check your BEO's as part of the setup process - again, verify to contract.

* In the event of a dispute, have a copy of your countersigned written contract at hand, and hold them to it, with all the yelling, screaming and waiving of arms required - and by all means, escalate, escalate, escalate (to the most senior person the hotel can muster).

Make them stick to the contract terms, I've had hotels many times try to change the game before it was done being played, I've had 10k plus credits to us before.

I was one of the speakers at this event and I have to say that the organizers really made a heroic effort to ensure we had a good event. Anyone not talking to the organizers did not even realize the stress they were under...they did an amazing job covering up the failures of the hotel. I am friends with many of the organizers, and the looks of pain on their faces when these problems came up really hit me hard. I applaud the organizers for taking such good care of us speakers (even to the point of going through our hotel bills individually) and the attendees (going to bat to ensure they were unaware of the problems).

I had an amazing time...thank you for your hard work.

Do this:

1) Approach a good lawyer to send a legal letter to the hotel putting in all the problems and demand a huge compensation.

2) File a case in the consumer court of Goa, if no proper response from the hotel.

3) If the lawyer finds no issues then approach local and national news/press agencies and get your story published there. Anything that comes in the news papers has a far greater impact and makes such businesses get down on their knees.

4) Do not delay in filing the case. Do it ASAP.

I wish you get a decent compensation though Indian courts are not known for that.

Well, here are a few things-

1) Put it on facebook also on their page.

2) Give them a solid ripping at all online boards like tripadvisor that you can find.

3) If you want to really, truly fuck them, register a case with consumer court. Indian consumer courts are very vigilant and they will make it worth your while by ass fucking Lalit resort.

In most cases merely the mention of filing a case in consumer court gets them at your feet.

I really feel for you. I know how it feels to pay through the nose and still get treated like shit.

My experience was amazing this year, good organization, good service, and luxurious facilities! This time it was far better than the previous year's conf held at Hyatt, Pune. But when I heard that organizers of conference faced so many issues because of management at LaLit, I really felt sad about whatever bad happened there. We should have other good options instead of such nasty hotels, IMO.

Ruby community is with you, fellas!

I sympathize with you and hope the story reaches more ears. I can believe how unprofessional hotel staff can be despite their own mistakes. That's especially true for hotels that are run as a family business and lack corporate culture & ethics. They'll throw around the word 'sorry' freely but they rarely mean it. I'd suggest you to take the legal route, or atleast get plenty of press coverage on this. Let's also hear out what they have to say.

For future reference: would there be benefit in hiring a reputed event management company, if so what would be the overhead?

Reasoning is three fold. The event management companies: (i) know which places work, (ii) they give repeat business, so less likely to be brushed off, and (iii) their boss (even if not onsite) has been in such situations before & knows what to do.

Great work at organizing an amazing event @IndianGuru. I still cant believe that a renowned hotel like 'the Lalit' can take a risk to upset an online community. They probably have no idea of the power of ruby/internet community. Let's submit shit loads of reviews on tripadvisor and other places that teaches them a good lesson.

Ah so much of white text on black background. Is there a web app I can paste the url and it will make it readable for me?

There should be easier procedure to file cases at consumer courts. To prevent such things from happening again.

They must be made to regret this bullying behaviour : file a case please.

fuck u lalit for treating a community like a shit ... how can we sue them .. im really feeling bad for our organizers :(