As travel stories go, it sounds nightmarish. A woman allegedly woke up in bed to find a strange man groping her.
As reported by ABC Newsthe incident happened in January, 2011 at Helsinki’s Hotel Kamp, which is part of Starwood’s Luxury Collection. The women is now suing because she says the hotel gave the man a key, just because he said he was her husband.
Now, without knowing the details of the case, it’s impossible to know for sure exactly what happened. Plus, I’m not going to presume to know exactly what happened. Besides, Gloria Allred is the lawyer involved Which means things are never simple.
The woman did apparently register as a single. But the story doesn’t say, for example, did the man know the woman’s name and/or her room number already?
But whatever happens, the case does bring up a situation that has happened to many travelers, misplacing a room key.
In the “dark ages” of travel — pre-keycard, this problem was less frequent. Hotel guests would either be given a real key, which was harder to lose than a credit-card sized card, or a larger key that they left at the front desk.
In additional, real keys did not suffer from occasionally being de-magnetized. (As an aside, cellphones are a leading culprit in this case, so travelers should try to keep keycards away from their phones.)
Surprisingly, there isn’t an industry-wide standard for replacing a hotel key.
Some hotels won’t do anything without identification. (Curiously I had a client become incensed and say he wouldn’t stay at a certain Four Seasons years ago because they demanded identification to replace his key. He thought they should have known him.)
And in a statement Starwood has said that it is company policy “to ensure proper identification is shown and verified before distributing a key to a registered guest’s room.”
Now, this is certainly the safest way to deal with the problem. But it can be a problem if the room is in only one person’s name or if you lock yourself out after going to the pool, beach or gym.
Personally, I’ve once had that happen to me, where I THOUGHT my keycard was in my book when I went down to sit by the pool. It wasn’t. But, by giving my name and room number, I got a replacement.
I suppose a hotel staffer could have insisted on accompanying me to my room to have me produce identification, and that could be an additional security measure. But do travelers really want that?
It can be worse, I’ve told some clients about one of my most embarrassing travel moments, where I was completely sober but really tired. After I checked into my room I immediately went for ice. Leaving my purse in the room. And then I realized that I had a keycard, and and a bucket full of ice, but I honestly couldn’t remember my room number.
Fortunately, it was almost at the end of the hallway, and I was able to remember the that the room was second from the end. But I had visions of going down to the desk. “No, I can’t remember my room, no, I don’t have ID, yes, I am an idiot.”
The surprising thing about the story, is that most travelers I have told it to report some variation almost as silly.
Finally, what should a hotel do when the person who loses a key isn’t the person whose name is on the room? Being cautious means denying the request, on the other hand, that could easily upset a regular guest if their roommate is kept out.
Some hotels do ask for the name of the second person in the room; some do not. To put it delicately, as most travel agents know, some travelers don’t want to put their travel companion’s name in any sort of record.
So what do you think, Consumer Traveler readers? Was this an isolated incident and no reason for hotels to get more security conscious? Should hotels bend the rules for key-less clients? Have you had any noteworthy incidents regarding keys? We would love to hear from you in comments.
Photo: Courtesy Helsinki’s Hotel Kamp
