Turkish Company to Change Vakil Caravanserai into Hotel

Tehran, 22 September 2007 (CHN Foreign Desk) – By speeding up the trend of purchasing the lands from their private owners which, the Municipality of Kerman is preparing the ground for changing the historical caravanserai of Vakil into a five star traditional hotel. A Turkish company has taken the responsibility to invest in this project...

[ FULL STORY (http://www.chnpress.com/news/?section=1&id=1898) ]

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Please! Please! Please! I hope the Turkish Company will be wise to have an international hotel chain (i.e. Intercontinental) manage the hotel.

Very cool :)

Thanks for the article

I wonder if they will make it stick out like a sore thumb like every other Turkish build/modified building in Iran....

Good news for Keman tho...

What do you mean Shugs? Can you give example?

cool

I think this is a really cool idea

It's actually not the first time a caravanserai has been changed to a hotel. The Abbasi Hotel (ex-Shah Abbas) was the first one - It won a lot of awards in the 1970s. Shame about its current state!

Isn't the abbassi still a very good hotel?

By international standards: No! It's still very pretty, but the service isn't so good. The whole place needs a renovation too!

I have visited the Abbassi hotel with European business partners and had to apologies to them for choosing that hotel.

The design and overall look is good, the location for tourist is great. Yet the staff is rude, unprofessional and the public places such as public toilets are dirty. The rooms are big, but not greatly cleaned.

If you add in everything, you can compare it with 3 star hotels in (northwest) Europe.

Damn, I thought it was a better hotel than that. That's actually very sad.

I have visited the Abbassi hotel with European business partners and had to apologies to them for choosing that hotel.

The design and overall look is good, the location for tourist is great. Yet the staff is rude, unprofessional and the public places such as public toilets are dirty. The rooms are big, but not greatly cleaned.

If you add in everything, you can compare it with 3 star hotels in (northwest) Europe.

That is a bit harsh. it is not that bad at all.

I find that with Iranian hotel and restaurant staff you get as good as you give...

If you are nice to them in turn they polite back...

It's understandable as it is common for Iranians to treat reception and waiting staff like dirt... No one would put up with that during the majority of their time at work, especially other Iranians.

What do you mean Shugs? Can you give example?

There is a chain of Turkish build/owned hotels in Shiraz... Can't remember the name, il post it when I remember...

All their hotels look seriously cheap... the cladding, concrete, interior and features looked cheap and bland like these cheap villas you'd find in Spain...

Expensive too at around £150/night

Of course with this it's converting an existing building...

Damn, I thought it was a better hotel than that. That's actually very sad.

So did I. That is why I took my business partners to the hotel.

@persian
It's not harsh, I am just stating my experience.

@shugs
I don't know where you get that. Unfortunately I did not take pictures of the real dirty public toilets downstairs and the dirty room. I can however make a transcript of how it went.

We entered the hotel and had a good first impression. Before we went to the counter, we visited the inside garden. It was also my first time in the Hotel and we enjoyed the garden. There were also official people from the Malaysian government that day for a business meeting in the garden and so there where metal detector gates and armed bodyguards in the garden. My guests asked me if it was normal in Iran to have metal detectors in hotels. Anyway we went to the counter to check in.

The hotel clerik said “What do you want” I replied in English “We would like to check in for two rooms”, his response was “Why do you speak English, you are in Iran”. I explained in English that my guests were from Europe and this way they would understand and might have questions. He walked away and told his college “I am not going to help him, you go help him”. The college then came, understood everything we said, but replied in Farsi. Then the phone rang and he picked it up and we had to wait 10 extra minutes. I asked (in Farsi) the other two clerks that where doing nothing to help me and they pointed to the one on the phone. This is not how you act at a 5 star hotel. I was not rude, on the contrary I am naturally not a rude person.

The whole week that we stayed, we had similar situations. For example, they do not carry the bags or bring the bags to your room. I can carry bags, but it is part of 5 star service. We wanted a cab and I asked if he can call a yellow samand cab with airco. The clerk at the reception told us to just go outside and look for one, he explained that there are usually some at the front. The first day we had to drive 1 hour in 40 degrees in a pekan, the next day I found a yellow cab and got his cellphone nr.
From the 6 days that we stayed, only 4 where cleaned and the bed sheets replaced, while they did bring clean towels and refill the shampoo and soap etc. And that was the last 4 days and because I gave the towel lady 20.000 toman per room to clean our rooms.

A bunch of small details that just don’t fit within a 5 star hotel. I visited it 2 years ago and only for 6 days. So my story is based on that experience.


The interior design and look of the building is definitely 5 star, yet the service, cleanliness is not good at all. With the right management and staff, it can definitely be an amazing hotel.

I also visited the Kowsar Hotel, it only had 1 free room, but the staff where friendly, spoke good English and the rooms looked clean. So maybe for next time I visit Esfahan.

Rahmani, you're not alone. Your experience is almost word-by-word similar to the stories of my own father who went there last year, my cousin from the States who visited in March and my British friend who visited in June. The only difference is that they didn't think it looked 5 star anymore either.

These places are run by the government and the people in charge have absolutely no training in how to run a hotel. My father who stayed at the Abbasi for part of his honeymoon about 30 years ago said the difference in service is like night and day!

Rahmani, you're not alone. Your experience is almost word-by-word similar to the stories of my own father who went there last year, my cousin from the States who visited in March and my British friend who visited in June. The only difference is that they didn't think it looked 5 star anymore either.

These places are run by the government and the people in charge have absolutely no training in how to run a hotel. My father who stayed at the Abbasi for part of his honeymoon about 30 years ago said the difference in service is like night and day!

That’s a shame . Looking at the hotels website it seems like a very beautiful hotel with potential . Too bad its not being run by the right people .

That’s a shame . Looking at the hotels website it seems like a very beautiful hotel with potential . Too bad its not being run by the right people .

Above, replace the words hotels website with Iran and hotel with country and you've got the sad story of our nation.

So did I. That is why I took my business partners to the hotel.

@persian
It's not harsh, I am just stating my experience.

@shugs
I don't know where you get that. Unfortunately I did not take pictures of the real dirty public toilets downstairs and the dirty room. I can however make a transcript of how it went.

We entered the hotel and had a good first impression. Before we went to the counter, we visited the inside garden. It was also my first time in the Hotel and we enjoyed the garden. There were also official people from the Malaysian government that day for a business meeting in the garden and so there where metal detector gates and armed bodyguards in the garden. My guests asked me if it was normal in Iran to have metal detectors in hotels. Anyway we went to the counter to check in.

The hotel clerik said “What do you want” I replied in English “We would like to check in for two rooms”, his response was “Why do you speak English, you are in Iran”. I explained in English that my guests were from Europe and this way they would understand and might have questions. He walked away and told his college “I am not going to help him, you go help him”. The college then came, understood everything we said, but replied in Farsi. Then the phone rang and he picked it up and we had to wait 10 extra minutes. I asked (in Farsi) the other two clerks that where doing nothing to help me and they pointed to the one on the phone. This is not how you act at a 5 star hotel. I was not rude, on the contrary I am naturally not a rude person.

The whole week that we stayed, we had similar situations. For example, they do not carry the bags or bring the bags to your room. I can carry bags, but it is part of 5 star service. We wanted a cab and I asked if he can call a yellow samand cab with airco. The clerk at the reception told us to just go outside and look for one, he explained that there are usually some at the front. The first day we had to drive 1 hour in 40 degrees in a pekan, the next day I found a yellow cab and got his cellphone nr.
From the 6 days that we stayed, only 4 where cleaned and the bed sheets replaced, while they did bring clean towels and refill the shampoo and soap etc. And that was the last 4 days and because I gave the towel lady 20.000 toman per room to clean our rooms.

A bunch of small details that just don’t fit within a 5 star hotel. I visited it 2 years ago and only for 6 days. So my story is based on that experience.


The interior design and look of the building is definitely 5 star, yet the service, cleanliness is not good at all. With the right management and staff, it can definitely be an amazing hotel.

I also visited the Kowsar Hotel, it only had 1 free room, but the staff where friendly, spoke good English and the rooms looked clean. So maybe for next time I visit Esfahan.

OK after reading this I would have to agree with you.

Every time I visited Esfahan I stayed at the Kowsar... It's a bit outdated but extremely clean and the staff are lovely tho the place is a static trap...

Anyway what I was origionally refering to is that I hope they don't make this hotel look like a Travel Lodge.