Abstract
Although the phenomenon of walking a client is traditionally viewed as an infringement of customers’ rights in the hospitality industry, in a range of cases, hotel managers succeed in avoiding legal responsibility for overbooking. Two interviews obtained from the victims of room booking mismanagement have proven that a range of loopholes allow hotel managers to avoid responsibility for their actions. Specifically, the fact that hotel managers may dodge liability by failing to record the phone conversation with the client or claiming that the latter arrived too late deserves to be mentioned. Therefore, a set of more stringent regulations must be approved for coordinating the situation.
Walking a Guest: Hospitality Industry Fraud and the Means of Addressing It
Introduction
The hotel industry has truly blossomed over the past few years due to the introduction of global economy. Since travels to foreign states have become an integral part of business, leisure and other activities for most denizens of the American population, the necessity to consider the laws that the specified field is based on closer. Despite a rather rigid set of principles adopted in the hospitality industry, the overbooking strategy adopted by many hotel managers leads to many customers being “walked” and deprived of the rooms that they have booked beforehand.
Legal Liability
Common laws in a range of states make it quite clear that hotel managers are legally liable for overbooking and failing to provide their clients with the facilities that have been promised in the course of communicating with the hotel staff, no matter whether the communication process is carried out directly or indirectly. For instance, traditionally, it is required that the hotel managers are supposed to refund the losses taken by the customers in the course of waiting for the room, getting to the hotel, etc.: “Hotels are generally liable for damages if they cannot honor a confirmed reservation because of ‘overbooking’” (United States hotel liability, 2015, para. 2). Therefore, the phenomenon of overbooking is not only ethically inadmissible, but also fraught with major legal consequences for the hotel staff in general and its managers in particular.
Overbooking and Walking a Client: Definitions
It should be noted that the very term “walking a guest” implies a very specific action carried out against the visitor of the hotel in question; according to the existing definition, “walking a guest” presupposes that, at the guest’s arrival, the hotel staff denies the client the room that the latter has already booked (Roennevig, n. d.).
Nevertheless, the specified action still qualifies as a major breach of the customers’ rights and, therefore, calls for legal repercussions. Therefore, the situation described with the help of the following phrase is related directly to the phenomenon of being overbooked at the hotel, seeing that the latter is defined as selling the same room to two or more customers (Roennevig, n. d.).
According to the laws adopted in the hospitality industry, refusing to provide customers with the rooms that have been booked makes hotel managers legally liable: “if the hotel cannot accommodate the guest then the hotel has breached the contract and may be liable for damages” (Contract law and overbooking, n. d., para. 2). However, even though walking a guest is considered a major breach of both hospitality industry rules and the legal regulations, in arrange of situations, hotel managers get away with overbooking.
Avoiding a Lawsuit for Walking a Client
Despite rather stringent regulations concerning hotel scam related to overbooking, numerous hospitality institutions manage to not only escape legal liabilities, but also retain their reputation as trustworthy ones. Even though the actions taken by these hotel managers are obviously flawed from an ethical perspective, there are several ways of avoiding legal repercussions, which hotel managers resort to upsettingly often.
In the course of the issue analysis, two interviews have been carried out. In each case, the victim of a specific hotel was walked without being refunded by the hotel managers. In addition, the hotels in question managed to retain their unblemished reputation.
Example 1: Late-night Arrivals
When it comes to fending for their rights, hotel managers usually resort to claiming that the people, who had booked the room, arrived too late; as a result, the room was offered to another person so that the hotel could not lose money. While technically being a rather good excuse, the above-mentioned means of avoiding responsibility for violating customers’ rights is rather flawed in cases when the clients arrive on time. An interview obtained from one of the people walked by a hotel staff shows, arriving exactly on time did not prevent the issue – in fact, it was necessary to come earlier in order to get the room that had been reserved several days before. The explanation provided by the hotel manager was rather simple and convincing, even though it seemed to go against the principles of customer satisfaction that hospitality industry should follow. As the interviewee said, a huge flood of customers was the manager’s key excuse – they simply could not risk losing an opportunity of renting room. Thus, as absurd as it seems, arriving late, especially in the night, provides hotel managers with loopholes for avoiding responsibility for overbooking and walking their clients.
Example 2: Booking via Phone
Another explanation provided by the hotel managers, who resort to walking customers, concerns the methods of communication used in the process of reservation, as an interview with another victim of overbooking has shown. An interview carried out with one of the people, who had suffered overbooking at a local hotel, said that they reserved the room in the course of a phone conversation instead of going to the official website of the hotel. As a result, the hotel manager stated that the phone call did not registered on their radar and that there must have been a misunderstanding. It is quite peculiar that, with no record of the conversation, there is no evidence of the process of booking ever taking place; as a result, the customer is practically incapable of proving that they have even called the company and contacted the hotel manager to begin with.
Much like the situation discussed previously, the given instance of customers’ rights infringement is impossible to track or prove unless the caller records the conversation; however, even in this case, proving that the call took place at a specific time and concerned the exact room does not seem a possibility.
The specified situation could have been avoided if the customer and the hotel manager had signed a contract, in which the dates of staying in the hotel and the number of room to be provided for the client had been stated. It should be noted, though, that signing a contract requires that the guest and the member of the hotel staff should meet and make the necessary arrangements, which does not seem a possibility in a range of cases.
Conclusion: Common Law and Hospitality Industry
Both an overview of the existing resources and an analysis of two interviews conducted with the people, who have been walked by hotel managers shows that there are a variety of ways for the latter to avoid legal responsibility for their lack of consideration and the attempts at gaining the maximum revenue with no regard for the needs of the customers whatsoever. It can be suggested, though, that the issue in question could be addressed by the customers themselves.
As experience of the interviewees shows, it is essential to arrive not merely on time, but before the actual time that the room has been booked for. As a result, hotel managers will be unable to dismiss the customers on the premises of having too many clients and, therefore, fearing the threat of losing one in case that the person booking the room does not arrive. Alternatively, even in the case the manager refuses to provide the room, they will still have to pay the customer a refund.
In addition, the interviews conducted with the victims of hotel booking mismanagement have also displayed the need for the potential clients to be very careful with the booking procedure, preferably carrying it out via the company’s official website. The specified actions are imperative for requesting a room and obtaining one, as the process of online booking is easily traceable, in contrast to the one carried out in the process of a phone conversation.
Reference List
Contract law and overbooking. (n. d.). Johnson State College. Web.
Roennevig, D. (n. d.). What does overbooked at a hotel mean? USA Today. Web.
United States hotel liability. (2015). US Legal Law Digest. Web.