AIBU to worry about pressure to put business hotel cost savings above personal safety.

[Hotelquestion]

I have recently started at a new company. Since joining there has been a real tightening up on budgets. I have to travel alone frequently with hotel stays at least weekly.

We had a staff meeting this week and the Department Head talked about being careful with travel expenses. She congratulated someone who had recently chosen a hotel further away to save money and made the comment that the area he had stayed in was not a particularly pleasant area. The person being congratulated is male and is a manager of others.

I feel uncomfortable that they gave the message that costs are more important than anything and that choosing hotels in dodgy areas is to be applauded.

I worry that people in his team (and particularly women) may now feel pressured to make choices and stay in areas where they feel uncomfortable.

YABU: grow up, it was a throw away comment.
YANBU: they should be aware of the message this might send.

Totally depends on what was being booked before, and whether there is a safe cheaper alternative.

As a lone female business traveller myself, I totally see your point, and as a business leader would want to make it clear that accommodation should be suitable and appropriate.

That said, your post is all a bit hypothetical at the moment... some people might at some point in the future feel somewhat pressured to stay somewhere they're not totally comfortable with. As a leader I would rather head these things off before they occur, but i know in many organisations you'd be given fairly short shift raising a hypothetical issue like this. I'd wait until a situation arises, i.e. you are being told to stay somewhere unsuitable when an alternative is available, and then raise your specific concerns to justify approval of your preferred location.

I don't disagree with you at all tbh, I just think that you'll get nowhere raising it when at the moment it isn't an actual issue.

I would say the answer to this is no. The hotel that was booked was the cheaper alternative. The safer option was more expensive.

It is also more a question about the message in general, and whether getting a round of applause for choosing a dodgy area is a good message to send.

Thank you. This is helpful.

But if it's further away, surely that means it's not much of a saving due to extra mileage/taxi etc anyway?

Personally I'd book the hotel most suitable. And tell managers why if challenged.

I would also suggest to management they either pick a particular chain and negotiate a rate if there are lots of you doing it or to employ a specialist business travel company who will have already negotiated fees. The advantage of the second is that you can speak to the travel company and ensure it's a safe hotel and as I have done in a previous life, feed back about dodgy ones

I would mention that the Suzy Lamplugh Trust provide staff training for personal safety issues outside of the office. Again I had it and it was brilliant even for a fairly street wise big lump of a bloke like me. Some of the tips were brilliant and I still follow them 25 years later

A lot of companies go through this cost control phase. I have always been clear that safety should be prioritised for me and my team. Our main office has a Travelodge close by. It is on a lonely stretched attached to a bus station and frequently has men sleeping outside. We have been pressured to have people stop there and I have had to explain multiple times why this is not possible.

I think to be fair the cost saving more than made up for the travel.

Thanks. We do have a travel portal (this is a fortune 500 company for context). This is part of my point, surely the question is whether it is within policy, not “how cheap can you go”.

Interesting about training, I will look into that as a more constructive way to approach this. Thank you.

Yes, this sums up my fears of how this could go. Thank you.

Was the other hotel dangerous in some way or just less posh because it was further out from the city centre? I have often stayed in the latter to save (company) money.

I travel for work often and our travel portal will default offer the cheapest hotel in the area. There are usually plenty of other hotels closer by but more expensive but which remain within policy anyway. There’s been a couple of times I’ve had to go outside of policy and I’ve included my reasons and never been challenged. That said the travel portal tries to bully you by saying ‘you could have saved £x on your hotel’ and puts that in the email to the approver but thankfully our company assumes that we’ve made the best choice for us.
Stick to your guns. Safety is paramount not saving £30.

It’s not about ‘poshness’ it’s about a lone woman walking in an unfamiliar city at night to get to a hotel. I recently rejected a default cheaper hotel because it was 15 minutes walk through some back streets in an unfamiliar city and didn’t have a mini kitchenette (I prefer to make my own food when travelling… just need a microwave and plates).
The one I chose was opposite the building I was working in and had the kitchenette. £30 more. Without the kitchenette I would have spent that on room service food anyway or even a taxi given I’ve got heavy bags with conference equipment in. So ultimately it would have been no saving at all and left me less comfortable.

YANBU! When I was a trainee we had to travel for college and there was one hotel that I didn’t feel comfortable walking around the area at night. Thankfully the PA that usually did our bookings was great and when I said I wasn’t keen she totally understood and would always book trainees into the other one. You can’t put a price on safety.

Yeah for example I wouldn’t stay in a traveloge ever again after the recent news stories

You could also screenshot Tripadvisor reviews of hotels that have reviews mentioning that the area is dodgy

If work is trying to book you into a hotel you haven't stayed in before, I think it's worth doing a bit of research on the hotel and area. If you have reason to believe you won't feel safe, I think it's certainly reasonable to push back. Someone I know used to regularly travel to the US for work. There was one time that, in an effort to save costs, work booked him into a hotel in an area where he didn't feel safe. (I'm sure the US has lots of areas that are less safe than anywhere in the UK!) On his return he informed the relevant person that if he was ever booked into the same hotel again, he would simply not go on the trip.