What do foreign celebs and guests request from a receptionist in a Budapest hotel?
Celebs are mostly friendly and they have no unreasonable requests, but receptionists need time to fulfil some of them. Most foreigners ask about sightseeing, boat trips or airport transfers, but there are some who would like to buy a Puskás T-shirt or enquire about escape rooms. A Front Office Assistant working in a huge Budapest hotel told his experiences to Szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu.
Most celebs are kind
According to the receptionist, most of the celebs are friendly and humble. For example, once the whole dance group of Shakira was housed in their hotel. However, they did not have extreme requests though they followed a strict schedule. Ronnie James Dio’s band also spent some nights in their hotel, and they were very friendly to everybody, as well. For example, they took a walk along the Grand Boulevard and allowed their fans to take selfies with them. Others like Slayer and Bad Religion gave autographs to their fans working in the hotel or even invited them to their concerts.
In the case of classical music, he said that most of the musicians who come to the Liszt Academy sleep in their hotel. Thus, it happened once that more than 100 musicians spent the night as their guests and since they wanted to practise they gave an
improvised mini-concert in one of the halls.
According to him, it is the most difficult to carry out complicated requests on the spot. For example, it happened once that somebody wanted an Italian interpreter and a sightseeing bus for 10 people right away. However, after all, he had to understand that it takes at least a couple of hours to organise things like that.
One of his most creative tasks was to find a dog sitter for the time the owner walks in the city. “To be frank,
our job requires permanent creativity
because all requests are different.”
Boat trip, sightseeing, Puskás T-shirt
Of course, they have fix answers in most cases. For example, if somebody has only a limited amount of time for sightseeing they always recommend Hop On Hop Off tours because these include not only boat trips or walking tours but also 2 different bus lines. Nevertheless, most foreigners ask about daylight or nocturnal sightseeing tours, airport transfers and, boat trips. However, some guests asked about a pleasure flight around Budapest while others tried a flight simulator. Interestingly,
escape rooms of Budapest are very popular
among foreign tourists. Furthermore, many of them like to visit caves, for example, the Hospital in the Rock.
According to him, most tourists are familiar with Hungarian Golden Team member Ferenc Puskás. Thus, most of them would like to buy a Puskás T-shirt, and many of them would like to see his statue. He added that the former Real Madrid star is especially popular among the Spanish tourists. For them, it is very important to bring home relics connected to him or to sit on a Honvéd football match.
Of course, sometimes even
funny stories happen.
For example, once one of his colleagues asked what the name of the guest is. The gentleman replied ‘Let me give you my card.’ However, on the card, there were only two words: ‘My Card.’ Another time a German guest arrived who only said ‘Zimmer’ (Ger. room). The receptionist replied that all their rooms are booked when the guest said that ‘Zimmer ist mein Name’ (Ger. Zimmer is my name).
Featured image: www.facebook.com/TheGrandBudapestHotel
Source: szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu
