Comprehension: Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow If I asked you which the first significant Palace hotel in India was, I am pretty sure you would get it wrong. Which, I guess, is fine. There is no reason why most of us should be well informed about the history of palaces or hotels. But what's interesting is this. I reckon that around 90 per cent of the travel business would get it wrong too And I am not even sure what you could say was the 'correct' answer. When the Taj Mahal Hotel opened in Mumbai over a century ago, it was called the Taj Mahal Palace. In those days, a grand hotel was regarded as a palace hotel and often used the word 'palace' in its name. All over Europe you will find so-called 'palace' hotels, none of which were ever palaces but were always built to be hotels. So yes, the Mumbai Taj was the first palace hotel of note in India. Except that it wasn't really a palace. The first real palace to be converted into a hotel was the Srinagar palace which Dr. Karan Singh gave over to the Oberoi group to run as a hotel in the late 1950s. There was no hotel boom in India in those days and only a small number of foreign tourists. On the other hand, Kashmir was the hot destination for tourists from the rest of India and for shooting Hindi movies. So the hotel always did well and inspired other maharajas to consider turning their palaces into hotels. Among the first maharajas to take the plunge were Sawai Man Singh of Jaipur and Bhagwat Singh of Udaipur. Sawai Man Singh lived in a relatively modern palace (early 20th Century construction) in Jaipur, called the Rambagh, and decided to move out to another palace (the older City Palace) and turn the Rambagh into a luxury hotel. The Udaipur family owned a beautiful palace in the middle of Lake Pichola overlooking their main palace and they turned that into a hotel. Unlike the Oberoi Palace in Srinagar which boomed under Oberoi management, neither Rajasthan palace did very well because maharajas are not born hoteliers and most of them are bad businessmen. The main theme of the passage is:

Question

Comprehension:  Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow  If I asked you which the first significant Palace hotel in India was, I am pretty sure you would get it wrong. Which, I guess, is fine. There is no reason why most of us should be well informed about the history of palaces or hotels.  But what's interesting is this. I reckon that around 90 per cent of the travel business would get it wrong too  And I am not even sure what you could say was the 'correct' answer. When the Taj Mahal Hotel opened in Mumbai over a century ago, it was called the Taj Mahal Palace. In those days, a grand hotel was regarded as a palace hotel and often used the word 'palace' in its name. All over Europe you will find so-called 'palace' hotels, none of which were ever palaces but were always built to be hotels.  So yes, the Mumbai Taj was the first palace hotel of note in India. Except that it wasn't really a palace.  The first real palace to be converted into a hotel was the Srinagar palace which Dr. Karan Singh gave over to the Oberoi group to run as a hotel in the late 1950s. There was no hotel boom in India in those days and only a small number of foreign tourists. On the other hand, Kashmir was the hot destination for tourists from the rest of India and for shooting Hindi movies. So the hotel always did well and inspired other maharajas to consider turning their palaces into hotels.  Among the first maharajas to take the plunge were Sawai Man Singh of Jaipur and Bhagwat Singh of Udaipur. Sawai Man Singh lived in a relatively modern palace (early 20th Century construction) in Jaipur, called the Rambagh, and decided to move out to another palace (the older City Palace) and turn the Rambagh into a luxury hotel. The Udaipur family owned a beautiful palace in the middle of Lake Pichola overlooking their main palace and they turned that into a hotel.  Unlike the Oberoi Palace in Srinagar which boomed under Oberoi management, neither Rajasthan palace did very well because maharajas are not born hoteliers and most of them are bad businessmen.   The main theme of the passage is:

Examsnet · Accepted Answer

Correct Answer is : Conversion of palaces into hotels

SSC Steno Grade C and D 23 Dec 2020 Shift 1 Paper

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