|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Privacy is paramount for any hotel to provide, but recent slipups regarding this very critical issue is causing the hotel industry to get slammed in the mainstream media. And in a year where the hospitality business has already been pilloried by not just the press, but the government as well, it’s a clear signal hoteliers need to be more vigilant.
Now the hotel industry is in the media’s bull’s-eye and reporters are looking to find the next Erin Andrews-style imbroglio to feed the beast.
As if it is possible to forget, Andrews was an ESPN reporter surreptitiously filmed nude inside her hotel room through the door’s peephole. The footage was posted on the internet, creating a bad publicity whirlwind. But that wasn’t the only case.
Last month something similar happened at the Denver Towne Place Suites. This time the victim wasn’t a high-profile guest like television figure Andrews but the Reams family, who were visiting from Nebraska on vacation. In both cases, the culprits requested a room adjacent to the party they were spying on and tampered with hotel property, allowing the filming to be executed. In Andrews’ case, the crime at the Nashville Marriott at Vanderbilt was carried out unnoticed, but with the subsequent incident at the Towne Place Suites, a hole that was drilled in the wall to reportedly film the 11- and 15-year-old Reams daughters through was detected by staff.
“Peeping Toms are not new to the hotel business. The method employed in this case is what is new to everyone,” said Skip Stearns from THE HOTEL EXPERTS, a company that provides litigation counseling for the hotel and hospitality industry. The emphases in these cases have mainly been on the fact that Michael David Barrett and David Fugate, the men arrested in the Andrews and the Reams case, respectively, were staying in the adjacent rooms to their targets and that Barrett specifically requested the room next to Andrews.
American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA) President and CEO, Joe McInerney, says this emphasis is misdirected. “The whole thing got out of proportion. The question shouldn’t be how did (Barrett) get the room next to (Andrews) but how did the pictures get taken. Being in the next room doesn’t matter. People are missing the point. If a guest notices that someone is harassing or following them, they should report it,” said McInerney.
In cases like these, the guests share the responsibility of ensuring their own protection with the hotel staff. “I think it’s strange that Andrews didn’t notice that her door had been messed with,” said Reneta McCarthy, lecturer at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration. Looking out for security breaches is part of the obligatory daily measures people must take in response to continuing criminal activity. “These cases are a reminder of how vigilant you must be. It’s like with terrorist attacks and looking out for bags left alone at airports. I think this will heighten awareness about all the crazy things people are doing,” said McCarthy.
No matter who or what is to blame for the Andrews and Reams incidents, repercussions concerning privacy and security protocol are to be expected. McInerney confirms that some hotels do have a strict policy against granting an adjacent room request but it’s still not uniform across the board.
“Precedent is lacking under such circumstances. Therefore, there is no current standard dealing directly with how to handle such a request for the reservations department in many, if not in most cases. You can be assured that the publicity surrounding the Andrews case has hotel companies redrafting their reservations standards,” said Stearns.
There are many instances when a reservations clerk may not have a written standard to refer to and complies with a guest in the spirit of customer service, a decision that management may have handled with more caution. “If a person asks for a guest’s room number, the assumption becomes they must know this person and that’s not always the case. There might be an 18-year-old working the front desk who may not be properly trained in privacy procedures and who doesn’t like to say no to someone. But this is the grey area; how do you handle these types of situations?” said McCarthy. She believes these kinds of scenarios provide opportunities for discussion surrounding privacy issues.
This is when customer service can be detrimental to the hotel and its guests and may actually work against its safety intentions. “You can see how, in the name of customer service, the reservations employee who is disconnected from the front desk or switchboard might simply have agreed to the caller’s request,” said Stearns, referring to the adjacent room request in Ms. Andrews’ case.
To make sure that hotel employees are following appropriate privacy and security procedures, McInerney recently sent out an advisory to the AHLA members. “It was to remind them what the procedures are and that they should be adhering to the policies that are in place.”
“Security is a very broad area. The most important thing hotels do — besides providing their guests a place to get a good eight hours of sleep — is to protect them,” said McInerney.
|
 |
|
