Since October 5,2005, I have been checking the hotel records to trace any clue of such an event taking place. Although the reviewer has identified himself/herself as being from (or coming from) Ireland and having stayed at the hotel in June,2005, I checked hotel’s June 2005 records and saw that nobody from or living in Ireland (or carrying Irish Passport) has stayed at the hotel in the month of June, 2005.

Another hard to understand aspect was: If a person goes through all those as described, would not he/she want to contact someone at management level - during or at least after the stay? I , the hotel manager, am at the hotel about 12 hours everyday except for Sundays, and about 4 hours on Sundays -to communicate with the guests); the hotel's Guest Relations Manager ( whose main duty is to walk around at breakfast and at the lobby and talk with the guests to assure everything is going fine with their stays) is not aware of such an incident; The SECURITY CAMERAS ( which record video AND sound) have not captured an incident/complaint of such nature. Moreover the hotel is a small boutique hotel where everybody is aware of everybody else -so the chances of the management not noticing an event as described looks very minimal.

These have made us question the accuracy of statements being mentioned. One explanation we could come up with is that a few disappointing experiences reflected badly upon the rest of guest’s perception stay.

Putting up a photo of two residents – both of whom I happen to know in person – living across the street and sitting on the corner of a sidewalk talking to each other , has also made us think why anyone would believe we would be embarrassed of the residents in the neighborhood and think that they are “bad view”. Most of our guests comment very positively about the location of the hotel just because of the same exact reason this review thinks we should be embarrassed of: We are on a residential “real” street with “real” residents -with the view of sea and Istanbul from higher floors and the neighborhood on the street floor. That is the way old city is and that is the way we are.

And the theft being described: “The hotel staff stealing a tourist camera (and simply handing it back after being threatened) ; and the maids stealing away money from the same person...” would still sound strange even if I did not know my staff very well. However, this should not mean that we did not take it seriously and make our own investigation.

As there are a number of charges, it should be better to go over them one by one:

About Safe-boxes: The safe boxes being mentioned are located in the management-room right next to me and accessible by the guests 24/7 - There is a separate safe deposit box assigned for each guest in the hotel and all activity gets recorded by security cameras. A safe-box in the management room – as opposed to a safe-box in the guest room - has been more desirable by many as it gives a chance to the user to use the safe box even before check-in and after check-out.

(We have later placed safe-boxes in the rooms so that guests may also put their laptops in. Now the guests are welcome to use the one in their room or the management room.)

About the recommendations made by the front desk staff: Hoteliers are quite often accused of being “commission takers” if and when a service that is recommended ( or just mentioned) by a hotel member ends up unsatisfactory. To avoid that, we follow the principle of not providing subjective views of any establishment. Our own recommendations are made usually by opening up a guidebook (Lonely Planet and Frommers) and following the guidance of the expert guidebooks In addition to that, our recommendations are also dependent on the satisfaction of previous guests who used those services. The brochures of the services that are not liked by the guest go off the shelf and get replaced by the ones that guests like.

Additionally, we have guest satisfaction forms which are placed in hotel rooms one day prior to guests’ check-out. Besides many other aspects of the stay, the guests rate the receptionists and management –in terms of “courtesy, expertise and speed of service”. The current average rating of the “expertise” of the front desk staff is rated as “4.7” over 5 . We are still working to make it even better.


About the tour companies that the guests mentioned (charging the guest three times more than other people on the tour) and the Turkish bath:

The city tours -available at every hotel in Istanbul -have “PRICE TAGS” on the printed brochures! It is technically impossible for anyone to pay one cent more than what is written on the brochure.

There are currently brochures of three baths at the front desk –all three of which are masterpieces of Ottoman Architecture – all three being highly recommended by the guidebooks.

We want to publicize good companies with services guests are likely to enjoy, but do not have a business relationship with any of them. They are independent companies over which we have no control, so we can accept no responsibility for their services either. Nevertheless we are extremely sensitive and care a lot about any experience of each and every single guest with any of these services and will keep on working very hard in providing the best possible service.