To ask what hotels are doing to ensure random men do not have access to your hotel room?

[DeftGoldHedgehog]

This story is absolutely horrific.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g01m82vn2o

Travelodge "changes policy". So your previous policy was to give out a key to an occupied room to anyone who asked for one, on the basis that he knew her name? You give your name on check in, anyone could hear it. And they offered the victim £30 initially! And then only a weak apology. Absolute arseholes.

I've been given a key to the wrong room on check in by Premier Inn before - it was already occupied. And I have read on here on more than one occasion about staff or other guests getting access to their room while they were asleep, so it certainly isn't just a problem with Travelodge.

When you think how organisations can be fined for sharing your data incorrectly, should there not be a bit more focus on what happens if someone is given access to you?

I travel for work and stay in a lot of hotels. I have a door wedge with a very loud alarm on it. There are a lot of room locks in hotels these days that employees have the ability to open, even if the occupant thinks they are secure. My employer has a workforce of approximately 22000 travellers, and every year rooms are entered by people who should not be there. One of my colleagues invented his own anti-intruder door device, such is the potential problem.

I would say it does not matter how local (ie British) and well known the hotel chain, put something at your door to protect yourself. People entering rooms is not unusual. It’s just that in this case the hotel let them in, they committed a rape, and then they were caught.

You can get devices that will completely lock a door, but I chose a loud alarm wedge as at least it gives me the chance of being rescued in a hotel fire. Let me tell you next about the number of colleagues I have who’ve been in hotel fires……

Thank you, I have just ordered this. Hidden cameras are also something that really worry me. It’s starting to put me off going away!

I don’t see the need to hand out keys at reception at all (once they have been issued on check in of course).
It’s not like the olden days where you got given a massive heavy physical key that you had to hand into reception every time you went out.
Legitimate room occupants surely would have their key card on them. For anyone who claims they have “forgotten” theirs, the receptionist should do as described in the Arora example above.
Perhaps the chains and safety locks got phased out due to fire regulations? You’d want to be able to break into a room in an emergency. However then it’s all the more important proper security gets enforced.
Having said that, in some people’s experience the hotel staff themselves seem to be the problem…

Thanks to this thread I am going to take a wedge next time I travel for work. I hardly ever do an overnight for work but I did stay in a Premier Inn a few weeks ago. I was given a weird room completely on its own by the stairwell, away from all the other rooms. It had its own vestibule with a fire door at each end and I felt very cut off and unsettled, totally out of hearing range. I think it had a deadlock (although no idea if a member of staff would have been able to open it) and I also put a chair against the inner door.
On googling wedge alarms I came across this terrifying image - w the actual f?!!

Such a shame women have to think of themselves as prey on a work trip but we do.

Then they change their policy. It really isnt difficult.

It should just common sense that they never ever give access to anyone not on the booking under any circumstances.
They can call the room/contact the guest to verify if they know the person but that’s it.

this happened to my sister when she was young, a guy who was obsessed with her went to her hotel, told the reception he was her boyfriend and was going to propose so they let him in there! And when she arrived he had run her a bath and put rose petals everywhere. Luckily he was somewhat harmless but it is chilling to think what could happen (and HAS happened, whether it’s rape or murder)

It's not as simple as changing policy, it would involve having to change the whole world-wide booking systems. Hotels.com, booking.com, trivago would all need to be redesigned as well as every individual hotel system. Should they, yes, but it's not the easy thing to do that you think.

So they couldnt take names on arrival?

If you want to make it safer, you can.

This is exactly what I would expect a hotel to do on this situation, seems the right solution.

Actually it is.

Change the policy to take the names ON ARRIVAL of the people you, the person making the booking, wish to allow to have a key card and state that you, the person making the booking will be contacted / have to show ID to approve any additional cards being made after check in.

If the hotel cannot contact the lead booker, the person may sit at reception or leave until they can.

Make it a fixed policy, stated up front, signage, at reception, signage in the room etc.

Of course they could, but that's not the question that was asked. I was responding to the original comment of only giving keys to those named on the booking system, and pointing out that booking systems don't normally include names.

This article below is about a homeless man being refused entry from a Holiday Inn (already paid upfront by a homeless charity), then later being accepted into a Travelodge.

Although this is off-topic to this thread, it smacks to me of desperation from Travelodge trying to regain some ground after the bad press with regards to vulnerable lone women. It's like they're trying to cover it up, so I felt it needed to be pointed out in this thread.

Travelodge - you can run, but you can't hide!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c33j3nnj830o

I've been given a card for my room opened the door and from the clothes on the bed and the noise from the shower there is obviously a man already in the room in the shower

i've also had a man open my door at 10pm thinking it was his room

door wedges and other locks scare me as if there was an issue and someone had to get into your room in an emergency situation. I use the locks (what weren’t they here) and a chair/my suitcase in front of the door if someone tried to come in

this is a much more bigger issue than the hotels are saying

I’m having to travel quite frequently this year and have a PA for the year who is organising my diary and dealing with travel bookings. When I saw about this in the news I was relieved that she generally books a Premier Inn. While they are bland they do have internal locks on their doors.
I was somewhat disconcerted this evening to see that next week a third party has booked me into a Travelodge. I won’t be able to change it, as they will be coordinating several hundred bookings and other arrangements, but I will definitely be looking into door wedges.

I checked into a Leonardo hotel at a the weekend. While I was doing so a boyfriend arrived. The reception staff called the lady in the room to check it was ok for the guy to go up.