.
We're adding another luxury hotel to our blacklist. The offense? Closing the hotel, a luxury resort, at short notice, during some of our clients' stay dates, for a stay we reserved 8 months ago.
It's never a good sign when you find out about a hotel closure on your own, rather than from the hotel. If a hotel anticipates needing to close for a few weeks to do renovations or for other reasons, ideally it should provide that possibility as a warning when guests are originally making reservations; that way they have the information they need to decide how to proceed, whether it's to avoid the hotel entirely, or reserve but also make a backup reservation at a different hotel.
When instead a hotel decides, a few weeks before stay dates, to close and not honor pre-existing reservations, it should at the very least:
- Proactively communicate the closure with guests and advisors and apologize for the significant disruption and inconvenience
- Be transparent about whether the full hotel/resort experience will be available to guests in the days prior to the closure. Guests deserve to know whether they would endure a compromised experience such as reduced dining and activity options, less attentive service due to fewer staff, etc. in the days immediately prior to the closure
- Provide attractive compensation/goodwill gestures to guests in addition to full refunds, in recognition of the opportunity cost imposed on guests by the closure, especially for guests who booked well in advance. When a hotel announces a closure only a few weeks prior to the stay, yet guests reserved months in advance, that typically means guests have lost out by having fewer choices, at more expensive rates, available to them at the time they learn of the closure, compared to what was available to them when they originally booked. Most clients hold non-refundable flights or award tickets that can't easily be changed due to lack of award availability, plus clients have had to arrange time off work, etc.
Instead, this hotel failed to reach out proactively to us or to the guests, nor have they apologized for the significant disruption to the clients' travel, or offered any kind of compensation to make the clients whole.
We'll advise TravelSort Clients who are considering this hotel's destination not to book this hotel and why; it's one of the many advantages of having a trusted luxury travel advisor in your corner.
If you have a hotel blacklist, which hotels are on it and why?
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