On June 16-17, 2011, ISKCON devotees from the Motel Gita Project attended the annual convention of the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) in Las Vegas, Nevada, requesting the owners of hotels and motels to include a copy of “Bhagavad-gita As It Is” in their guest rooms, as is commonly done with Gideon’s Bibles. The Motel Gita project previously had booths at AAHOA’s annual national conventions last year in Chicago and in 2009 in Washington, D.C., as well as in smaller, regional conventions throughout the year.

The word is gradually getting out among U.S. moteliers, roughly 65% of whom are Hindus of mostly Gujarati extraction, that ISKCON will provide Srila Prabhupada’s translation and commentary on Bhagavad-gita for the benefit of their English-speaking guests. Many of the moteliers are enthusiastically embracing the idea, and others are willing to be persuaded. In Las Vegas, devotees took orders for about 8,300 Gitas, with a potential for much more in the future, because many moteliers who own 5 to 10 motels comprising a total of 600 to 1,000 rooms agreed to try it out in one of their smaller motels first, placing orders for just 50 or 60 books for now and probably over ten times that number later.

Since 2009, Motel Gita has received orders for nearly 100,000 Gitas and seems well on its way to meeting its goal of placing Gitas in 1 million rooms by 2015 as the word spreads and it makes better use of the press and other means of advertisement. The main obstacle is finding the money to pay for the books, which with printing, shipping, handling and overhead cost the organization about $4 per book. The moteliers are accustomed to getting Bibles for free, and they are mostly willing to try putting the Gitas in their rooms if they are free, though some may be a little reluctant to try it.

At this year’s convention in Las Vegas the members of the Motel Gita project met a number of moteliers who have already stocked their rooms with Gitas for a year or two, and they were brimming with stories of their experiences. They have not had any problems with the franchisers (like Econolodge, Days Inn, Holiday Inn or Motel 6), whose contracts with them typically require them to provide Bibles, but do not prohibit providing other books or scriptures. They have occasionally had complaints from evangelical Christian guests who distrust any other sacred scriptures besides the Bible and tend to regard the United States as an exclusively Christian domain, but favorable comments far outnumber such complaints, and many guests ask whether they can purchase their copy (the motels usually tell such guests to take a complimentary copy).

For more information, or if you want to support the project please visit: www.motelgita.org