It's late and a guest comes to you to check in Unfortunately the hotel has to relocate any remaining guests This guest is tired and very upset How do you handle the situation?

Answer 1

Lets begin by talking about why hotels run out of rooms. There are two principle reasons why this happens;

1) The most common is that hotels overbook to insure they make as much money as they can during high demand periods. Guests routinely cancel with short or no notice and the hotels try to guess how many they will lose. Often they are wrong. Though reservations are typically "guaranteed" with a credit card the reality is that less then half of that money is collected for various reason.

2) The other way hotels become overbooked is due to guests who fail to leave on their check-out date. In most states it is unlawful to expell a guest from a hotel as long as they are in good credit standing. So they stay forcing someone else to go. There are typically at least a couple of these daily in large hotels.

Most hotels usually use this second explanation for why they are out of rooms. It has the virtue of being (typically) true and because it allows the hotel to escape at least some of the blame and lay it off on an anonymous guest.

However, a number of hotels are going with the truth concerning reason number one. The traveling community has, in large part, become too savy not to be aware of this aspect of the industry.

Managers are trained to listen as the guest vents his/her frustration and then slowly introduce what the hotel has in mind for them. Usually the hotel will pay for a room, transportation to and a phone call at another property. If the guest's stay is longer then one night they are brought back the next day usually with an upgrade of some type.

Just a note and I'm speaking from experience here. Making a big stink at the Front Desk of a sold out hotel will likely get you very little. Hotels don't "hold" rooms for anyone. They are in the business of selling them. More often then not the staff, who are already backed into a corner, will send you packing with the minimum they need to provide. Make their lives easier on a tough night and they'll help you out.

Answer 2

When a guest checks into a hotel late, and accommodations have to be made that will disturb another guest, the best solution for the disturbed guest is to offer a discount for having to move them. A guest that checks in late can also be asked to take a different room at a discount and no one will have to be moved.