Eric Weiner on the downside of luxury hotels

“Adrift in a faraway land, there is nothing quite as reassuring as the hermetic comfort of a five-star hotel. Long driveways, modern-day moats, separate you from the country out there. Once inside the sliding glass doors, life is air-conditioned in every sense of the word. The message is clear: Why leave this palace when everything you need is right here? Within the hotel compound, you can eat, drink, exercise, fax, email, get married, have a massage, hold meetings, play tennis, go swimming, shop, get divorced, receive medical attention, book an airline ticket, and so much more. In the developing world, what we used to call the Third World, hotels serve as meeting grounds for the local elite. In Manila, I once reported an entire story for NPR without leaving my hotel. Everyone I needed to interview was in the lobby, sitting in high-backed chairs, sipping lime juice, smoking cigars, and trading gossip. * Yet here in this oh-so-nice hotel, where my every need is attended to instantly, sometimes before I even know I have such a need, I am not happy. What’s wrong with me? After a while, a word pops into my head, and given my surroundings, it’s an unexpected word. ‘Tomb.’ Yes, that’s it. The hotel is a very nice, very tastefully appointed, climate-controlled tomb. Tombs are for dead people. And I’m not dead yet.”
–Eric Weiner, The Geography of Bliss (2008)