Some hotels in big cities like Bangkok would offer taxi drivers free lunches or gifts as a way for them to remember the hotel name and address. — Siam Kempinski Hotel Bangkok
For those who remember, in the days before Google Maps, the only way to get to your hotel in a foreign country was to throw yourself at the mercy of the taxi driver and cross your fingers. It was a universal practice with unpredictable results.
Travellers from Colombo, Sri Lanka to Calcutta, India arriving in the wee hours – as this was the only time international flights deigned to land – were spirited off to unfamiliar lodgings while “overbooked” hotels scratched their heads to account for missing guests. That’s when a savvy few decided to deal with the situation.
