Keep Track of Bad Guests



from http://www.hotelchatter.com/


(Hospitality Business News - Oct 16 2010) Recently we posted a story about a UK web site that tracks "unwanted" guests. ( http://www.hospitalitybusinessnews.com/2010/09/guestscan-allows-hotel-owners-to-share.html ) The purpose is to help Hotel Operators determine whether or not they should accept a reservation from certain people or, simply pass. To say that this a new concept would not be true. What's new is the trend to organize and distribute this data among hotels and, perhaps in the future, restaurants. Many hotels now refuse guests based on their perceived or real behaviour. For example many hotels in Florida and the Caribbean will not accept reservations for "Spring Break" groups. In Europe hotels shy away from groups of British Soccer fans.

In the United States a similar web sites exists called Guest Checker . This site currently charges an annual fee of $40. According to the site they are "tracking" 1326 guests and have 687 members. GuestChecker is a member managed database of short term renters. To apply for membership, the following criteria must be verified by their staff

1) You are an accommodations provider to renters such as a hotel, motel, vacation rental, apartment, etc.

2) You agree to notify renters via email or postal mail when you post their information on this website and allow them the chance to offer rebuttal if they choose.

3) The rental policies and/or privacy policies on your website must state the following: "At any time during, before, or after your stay with us, your information may be shared with www.guestchecker.com" (this website address must be a live link back to our site)

4) You must agree to our terms and conditions

Most Hotel people seem to like this concept. Others complain about "privacy" laws. The question seems to be is there a difference between hotels putting together a list such as this and hotel guests writing TripAdvisor reports? Some TripAdvisor reports mention staff by position or name. Wouldn't privacy rules apply here too, if you believe that there is a privacy issue.

From comments that we have seen it appears that the big concern is the degree of the offence. At what point do you submit a guests name? This is a difficult question to answer. I had a guest in a hotel that I worked at once who left the hotel and submitted a chargeback to his credit card company. He stated in his letter to the company that he had paid cash at checkout and he enclosed a copy of his folio showing what purported to be a cash payment. I looked to see if a cash payment had been received and there were none that day that matched the payment that his folio showed. I checked everything and there were no postings in our system. I checked the copy of the folio that was sent to us by the Credit Card company and it lined up and matched the folio on our system , other than the cash payment. Ours showed that he paid by credit card. Finally I looked at a cash paid folio and saw that our cash folios show "Cash Payment" and not simply "Cash" like the folio we received stated. So I got the chargeback reversed. I should have had the "guest"charged with attempted fraud. I do not think that any hotel would want to accommodate this guy. But let's say that a guest simply complains a lot. Is this a valid reason? You may think that your hotel is great and the guest does not agree.

There is a lot to consider here. This could turn out to be a valuable service, if it is used properly.

Comments from Guest Checker
The idea of a guest tracking system is not new. However, we have added a few key features that some of the other sites seem to lack. The first is a "guest dispute" procedure. A guest is notified when their information is added to the database. They are also given the chance to offer their side of the story. Someone who accidentally knocks over a lamp and  offers to pay for it should not be placed in the same category as someone who purposefully trashes a hotel room. The guest should have the right to address their accuser.

Secondly, we only allow one person within the company to report a guest for an offense. That 'reporting agent' must be in a senior management position. This stops any malicious reporting by the night watchman, for example.

Privacy advocates and consumers alike are concerned about their personal information. I would like to take a moment to share with the general public how their information will be handled.
1)Guests are made aware, in advance, that they will be staying at a facility who uses GuestChecker.
2)Our members have the opportunity to add guests compliments, as well as concerns. Some of these compliments include: "Excellent repeat customer", "very courteous and polite", etc.
3)Only a guest's name, address, and phone number are tracked. The same information is already publicly available in any phone book.
4)These personal details are kept in a database with bank-level security and is not available to the public.
5)Our members cannot scroll through a list of names and offenses. They can only search for a specific person and receive a "Match" or "NoMatch" result.
6)At no time are details such as credit card information, date of birth, race, religion, etc. stored or used in our database.
7) At no time is anyone ever "blacklisted". Our members do not have the ability to advise other accommodation providers to refuse service for a guest. Rather, we allow them to report on the facts of a guests' stay so that the next hotel can make an informed decision on how to best prepare for that guests arrival.