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Should hostels honor bookings at all costs ?

Hostel Reviews, Booking Engines, and Directories

matt70 started this discussion 12 years 4 months ago

Are there cases when hostel staff is entitled to turn down the customer with online booking ?

Risk cases :
a.) customer with visible infectious skin disease (e.g. herpes on lips and elsewhere etc.)
b.) customer under influence of drugs and alcohol
c.) customer accompanied with prostitute /-s (maybe shady persons in general)
d.) customer with heavy stench (e.g. extreme smelly legs, homeless people stench)
e.) aggressive customer or group of customers (e.g. danger for staff and other customers)
f.) customers obviously being criminals (gang like dress and posture, possible concealed weapon)
g.) etc.

HostelWorld and HostelBookers get very angry and press hard on hostels in case that they do not honor their bookings.

Should one honor bookings at all costs endangering health and safety or should one decline problematic cases and have a fight with HW, HB and similar...

What are your experiences ?

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Rucksack Brian

12 years

If it’s clear from the beginning that you’re just going to have to kick someone out, then why bother checking them in? You can decide for your own business what you consider to be reasonable grounds to refuse service to someone. I would actually encourage you to train your staff to turn away problem guests before they can damage your hostel.

The contract for each of the booking sites lists what they want you to do when you cannot honor a confirmed booking. Generally, you have to find the guest alternate accommodation that is as good as or better than what they booked with you and pay for their transportation to get there. That seems like a small price to pay to be rid of a problem guest. As long as you follow their guidelines, the booking sites should have no reason to be angry with you.

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matt70

12 years

Thank you for your answer. I was myself employee in several hostels and hotels, and seasonally work in tourist industry. Different hostels have different approaches and it is not always easy to deal with problem cases. In midsized and bigger hostels is hostel staff (people like me) often in charge of dealing with such people (I worked in a hostel where hostel owner would go in hiding when such cases would occur and leave employees to deal with it :D )

One can say that the best solution in my opinion is to provide alternative accommodation and transport for HW, HB, etc. customers, but imagine that there are cases when customers simply act aggressively or passive aggressively and are neither to be dealt by police nor by staff of the hostel (police does not arrest people for foul language, being impudent or being smelly or sick :rolleyes: ). Grey zone is the problem. Not rarely - reviews are being used as threat, and it is not easy to work in atmosphere poisoned by extremely empowered guests by online booking engines. Guest is a boss, but when boss becomes tyrant, ... :sick:

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Rucksack Brian

12 years

Not rarely - reviews are being used as threat, and it is not easy to work in atmosphere poisoned by extremely empowered guests by online booking engines.

I would like to hear from the booking sites about this one. It is my understanding that if a guest is troublesome enough to get himself kicked out of the hostel, then he loses his right to leave a review.

Be sure to immediately cancel the booking of anyone you throw out (along with comments to explain the situation) and shoot a line to your buddy/account manager to give them a heads-up about the incident. It won't guarantee that you won't get screwed, but at least it will support your case if you request to have a retaliatory review removed later.

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matt70

12 years

I would like to hear from the booking sites about this one. It is my understanding that if a guest is troublesome enough to get himself kicked out of the hostel, then he loses his right to leave a review.

Be sure to immediately cancel the booking of anyone you throw out (along with comments to explain the situation) and shoot a line to your buddy/account manager to give them a heads-up about the incident. It won't guarantee that you won't get screwed, but at least it will support your case if you request to have a retaliatory review removed later.

Well ... :rolleyes: My experience is a lot worse than yours then. Booking sites (HW, HB and alike) side with guest whenever possible at expense of the hostel. In their opinion - that is a very PROFESSIONAL thing to do :cool: It does not help to cancel the booking with HostelWorld since guests can still write a review. With HostelBookers is even worse since you have nothing to do with cancellations at all (you can not cancel - only update availability). So cancelling means nothing unless you can somehow prove that the guest crossed the line, which is very arbitrary and if guests can find witness or two writing emails to booking sites (often false ones ofcourse) - you are basically cooked ! (if a problem customer happens to be female and calls Dublin or London and sheds a tear - prepare yourself to be kicked out of booking site - guilty as charged - no defense - no innocence until proven otherwise or at least cover the costs and excuse yourself for being screwed over). Only exceptions are made in case that your city is not saturation point and they need you to generate income. To prove otherwise one would need HD security camera with perfect video and audio recording of guests behavior. Having cameras inside of the hostel is not legal in all countries and recordings can often not be used as legal proof, or only law enforcement is allowed to see it. In some hostels I worked in - we always had a video camera at hand and would take it out to record the situation in case customers would start with tantrums, aggressive behavior and blackmails - it worked WONDERS ! "Tiger" or two would calm down and become an innocent puppy... Really cunning ones would start acting like holywood stars and change from bullies to innocent victims. But ... These methods destroy easy going atmosphere in hostels and make whole job meaningless in the first place.

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Rucksack Brian

12 years

It does not help to cancel the booking with HostelWorld since guests can still write a review.

When you kick a guest out and cancel the reservation they can (and probably will) leave a review. Canceling the reservation won’t prevent that, but it helps to support your case when trying to prove that they shouldn’t be permitted to attack you with that review. Proof is indeed quite hard for most hostels to provide, so it really comes down to your relationship with your buddy or account manager to resolve the issue. Sadly, some are much better than others.

The booking sites’ customer service efforts frequently do not extend to hostels despite their use of words like “partner” or “buddy.” Like you said, they want to act “professional,” which means that they will support whichever side applies the most pressure. If a nasty guest with crocodile tears outshines you, then you lose. Remember though: one guest might give them a 10% commission for each night of their trip. One hostel might give them a 10% commission for each of their guests 365 days per year. You are a more valuable customer than the guest you had to kick out. If your primary contact can’t help you, then keep your calm and ask to talk to their boss, and their boss, etc. until you get to someone who can fix the problem. The higher-ups have different objectives and priorities. They may be more inclined to help you.

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HostelOffice

12 years

From my experience you accept the bad review and use it to entice other guests to write a review to counter the review from the guest you kicked out. Then after a month or so HW and HB will very often agree to delete the bad review. So then you win win win. It is a great talking point to use to engage with guests and try to recruit any other guests to your cause that witnessed the incident of kicking out the guest.

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matt70

12 years

From my experience you accept the bad review and use it to entice other guests to write a review to counter the review from the guest you kicked out. Then after a month or so HW and HB will very often agree to delete the bad review. So then you win win win. It is a great talking point to use to engage with guests and try to recruit any other guests to your cause that witnessed the incident of kicking out the guest.

First of all, problem is that guests believe in bad reviews 10x times more than in good ones. In opinion of most of guests - good reviews are suspicious, and bad ones show TRUE situation in a hostel. ;) Please do not forget that hostels do not have resources and staff like a hotel, and can not provide hospitality industry standard service and actually please a guest in a way hotel can. Only way service can be better for miserable money hostels get for their services is AT EXPENSE of staff and their free time and energy.

I worked in a number of hostels where we were forced by hostel owners to spend our free time with guests, drink with them, and even go out with them to the city, since crybabies need attention. To be alone in the first place means that maybe you are not the best person in the world, and that you do not deserve any attention at all ... Worst ones ofcourse were and are single males, which often write bad review in case that e.g. they do not find a girl in hostel to sleep with, or maybe fail to get one somewhere in the city. Or if you at least do not devote special attention to them. Many hostel guests of that type are pure psychos, and need attention, above all medical one. Only place in the world where potential psychopath has a power to harm normal people in a legal way are hostel reviews.

In the end why should I justify myself for every little problem that occurs to anybody ?

Second of all - hostel staff is no army recruitment staff, no police and is no legal representative, so are hostels no courts too. Terms like "recruit", "win over", "witness" do not belong to hostel business. They are coming from corporate business and their understanding of any business (and whole life for that matter) as war and fight. Disgusting !

Third of all - hostels were proud that they were not professional institutions like hotels. Easy going atmosphere, a little bit of 68´ hippy feeling, spontaneous communication between guests and staff and a lot more. Booking engine sites have forced us to professionalize and become more like hotels. They have taken our main selling point from us + taken our soul away from us in a sense. Now you have to measure your every word in front of the guests to stay within political correctness, guest demand service of a hotel for abysmal money they pay and every year they want more and more.

Call me old-fashioned - but I remember better times...

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elpsi

12 years

Hi, I have been reading here, and many more times in the post "Vendetta reviews", interesting (to me) references regarding bad or even psychopath guests behaviors.

Let me tell you that I have more experience with "human behavior" than with "hostel management", because I am a psychiatrist since 1987, and my hostel is not open yet BUT the WORST UN-PROPER PSYCHOPATH LIKE MANIPULATIVE MISCONDUCT I've ever seen WAS NOT among my patient in my office, BUT it was among clients of a print shop I had 8 years ago.

So, get ready to lead with people trying to get what they want, with no normal or logic limits, no matter to which socio economic, race, age or educational level belong. Once in a while you should face this unfortunate event, but we MUST set the limits in our property no matter what the review or booking engine companies will do.

HB, HW or even other costumers will be able to believe your arguments when you explain the situation in response to the only one or few vendetta reviews.

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