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1 November 2002
You can call me Al
Hotel guest recognition programs can be dangerous
By Terry Riley
It ain't easy making a buck in the lodging business today. So
hotels have to find a way to entice people to stay with them rather than
with their competition—not so simple when you figure that the majority of
hotel guests are unconscious for
most of the time spent in their rooms. And hoteliers know that when
their guests awaken in the morning, they really can't
tell the difference among a Hyatt, a Hilton, or a Marriott. So hotel
marketers look
for other ways to differentiate themselves from their competitors.
One way is to offer frequent-stayer programs and then use the information from those
programs to personalize the “hotel experience.” This has been a common
industry practice for some time, but according to an article in The New York Times
this past month, some fancy-schmancy hotels are now upping the ante in
their "guest recognition" programs in efforts to cement the loyalty of
their frequent guests.
Among the hotels mentioned in the article (the Peninsula, St Regis,
Four Seasons, and W Hotels in New York; the Regent Beverly Wilshire and Le
Montrose Suite Hotels in Southern California; and the Ritz-Carlton Hotel
in San Francisco) some managers are "instructing employees to greet guests
by name in hallways, in elevators, even in the gyms," some of these
upscale properties are even distributing photos of returning guests to
their employees to help them recognize those customers.
All of this is well and good for hotel marketing weenies, but it could
be disastrous for their guests. You see, the guest identity information that
is being circulated by the hotels is exactly information that is important
to criminals who are looking to get the drop on those same hotel customers.
There are few things more valuable to a good crook than personal
information about his target. And at the top of the list of valuable
personal information is the target's name.
Think about how disarming it is
to have someone approach you using your name—especially your first name. You
immediately let down your guard. You think, "How do I know this person
approaching?" Your attention is drawn away from exercising caution to
probing your memory so as not to embarrass yourself. In the meantime you
allow the stranger greater access to you and to your belongings.
This is why careful travelers make it a point not to be known.
They make reservations and register using fake surnames and/or never use
their real given names.
Me? I don't need, nor do I want the hotel staff addressing me as
Mister—or worse, Doctor Riley. “Sir” makes me feel important enough. So
when I check into a hotel, I use my first initial and the last name of... well it wouldn't be
very prudent of me to tell you that, would it?
© 2002 Applied Psychology
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