Over the years hotels have had to put up with damage and theft by their customers. Insurance company More Than told The Travel Magazine that some £5 million worth of bathrobes had been taken, 336,000 beds broken and 300,000 television sets destroyed.
Research conducted by the insurance company show that there have been three million instances of guest-related property damage at British hotels over the past five years, and 80% of guests admitted to having stolen from hotels.
Now, it seems, hoteliers can get their own back. A new database has been launched in the UK allowing hoteliers to blacklist customers who steal or damage property in their hotel room.
The online database means that anyone in the hospitality industry can run a check against any potential customer before accepting their booking. The system is similar to the system used by credit card companies to find out if they have defaulted on payments.
Up to 10,000 small hotels, B&Bs, holiday letting agencies and campsites are expected to sign up to the subscription-based GuestScan network.
The temptation to take away a nice hotel robe is indeed a tantalising one
Subscribers are able to check the register for known troublemakers and upload information on new offenders — naming and shaming guests who steal towels, make excessive noise, are abusive towards other guests or don’t pay their bills.
The database was conceived by Bristol businessman Neil Campbell after a neighbour who owned a B&B suffered a “visitor from hell”.
GuestScan inform offenders and they may stay blacklisted for between two and four years. Under the Data Protection Act, those placed on the list have a right to appeal. It’s the first database of its kind to be launched in the UK, although a similar scheme called Guests Behaving Badly was launched in Australia in 2007.
It’s coincidence that this also comes as a court in Nigeria recently convicted a woman of stealing two towels and an iron from the Transcorp Hilton Abuja Hotel in Nigeria’s capital.
A security guard at the Hilton last year caught the woman, Bilikisu Dowodu, with the goods as she tried to leave the hotel grounds, according to a report on AllAfrica.com. He then reported her to the police. The woman was ordered to pay a fine of about $20 or spend three months in jail.
“The accused…conspired with one Jane of room number 864, Transcorp Hilton Hotel, now at large, to steal a pressing iron, hand towel and face towel from the room,” the prosecutor told a courtroom.
The woman pleaded guilty, but said she didn’t know the items were stolen by her friend who had asked her to carry them in a bag out of the hotel.
So, come on, own up. What have you half-inched from a hotel room? Give us all the juicy details below.
Scott Snowden
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Reputation is ‘the result of what you do, what you say, and what other people say about you’, and in today’s global internet market your business reputation can be damaged in a millisecond by anyone, from anywhere, at anytime.