A man from India has gone viral after sharing his experience of staying at a hotel in Switzerland where a notice specifically addressed “Indian tourists,” asking them not to pack buffet food into their purses.
Dr Arshiet Dhamnaskar, a neurosurgeon, said the message left him feeling “hurt,” not because of what it said, but how it was written.
A few years ago, I was in Switzerland with my family. Behind the hotel room door, there was a long message which could be summarised to,
— Arshiet Dhamnaskar (@arshiet) October 5, 2025
“Don’t pack buffet items into your purses. If you want, we can give you separately packed food items.”
Which seems an okay message, that… https://t.co/k7WuSmIJQa
On X, responding to a post that read, “Hotel breakfast buffet is where people reveal their true selves,” Dr Dhamnaskar recalled his stay in Switzerland.
“A few years ago, I was in Switzerland with my family. Behind the hotel room door, there was a long message which could be summarised to, ‘Don’t pack buffet items into your purses. If you want, we can give you separately packed food items,’” he wrote.
He added that while the message itself seemed fair, it was the singling out of Indian tourists that upset him.
“Which seems an okay message, that yeah, it is ‘unlimited’, but not really ‘unlimited’ that you hoard it all into your bag and get free food for life and stuff,” he wrote. “The one real thing that hurt me was, well, the message could have been addressed to anyone and everyone, but it, specifically, started with, ‘Dear Indian tourists.’”
His post quickly went viral, but some users questioned its authenticity, calling it fake.
In response, Dr Dhamnaskar said he could not find a photo of the notice in his own gallery but later came across a similar post shared earlier online.
Some people are calling this a fake, so I tried searching my photo gallery if I still have the pic I had taken for it, but in vain.
— Arshiet Dhamnaskar (@arshiet) October 5, 2025
Then I thought maybe someone else would have posted it online, and turns out it has already been posted before: (not sure if this was the exact…
He shared a 2019 post by industrialist Harsh Goenka about the Arc-en-Ciel Hotel in Gstaad, Switzerland, which displayed a notice that began with “Dear guests from India.”
The hotel’s message included instructions such as not taking buffet food, ordering a lunch bag for a fee, using only hotel cutlery, not sharing dishes with more than two people, and maintaining silence in corridors.
Reading this notice I felt angry, humiliated and wanted to protest.
— Harsh Goenka (@hvgoenka) July 22, 2019
But a realisation dawned that we as tourists are loud, rude, not culturally sensitive. With India becoming an international power, our tourists are our best global ambassadors. Let’s work on changing our image! pic.twitter.com/7R4ZrZIXKi
Goenka had written, “Reading this notice, I felt angry, humiliated and wanted to protest. But a realisation dawned that we, as tourists, are loud, rude, and not culturally sensitive. With India becoming an international power, our tourists are our best global ambassadors. Let’s work on changing our image!”