Reddit user /u/Arkamari kindly agreed to answer my questions about sex work in hotels from his perspective as a hotel manager in USA.
He's posted an AMA, ask me anything, on the /r/clientsandcompanions subreddit and later on the /r/sexworkers subreddit and replied there to questions from sex workers.
Arkamari is a client and ally of sex workers and he understands full well that most sex work occurring in hotels is between consenting adults and is in no way likely to be more disruptive to the hotel than the average guest. Perhaps much less disruptive in that as sex workers we are trying very hard to be discreet in order to avoid a situation where we might get kicked out of a hotel, or even banned from a hotel, which would obviously be a negative outcome for ourselves in terms of loss of income from jobs we might need to cancel and curtailing our ability to do business at that hotel in future.
Having said that, he's trying to do business too and from his point of view, sex workers are welcome provided we don't cause problems.
Here are his thoughts on how to avoid appearing to be a potentially problematic hotel guest as a sex worker.
Consensual adult activity vs “red flags”
A lot of sex workers assume hotel staff automatically regard all sex work as problematic and that the second you realize we're sex workers you'll be looking for an excuse to kick us out regardless of how discreet we are, but your AMA suggested a more nuanced approach which is great to see. From a hotel management perspective, how do you personally distinguish between two consenting adults quietly using a hotel room (even if one person is a sex worker) versus signs of trafficking or real problems that genuinely raise concern or require intervention? What kinds of things actually trigger red flags for staff? eg: Signs of coercion or trafficking; Someone appearing underage; Obvious pimp/third-party involvement; Drugs or smoking complaints; Excessive traffic to and from a room; Noise or disturbance complaints; Violence or welfare concerns. And in your experience, is your attitude fairly normal within the hotel industry, or more unusual?
I want to start off this question by stating that every hotel is different. There's a common misconception that every Hampton is run the same way or every Marriott is run the same way, etc. Every hotel is owned and operated by different companies and managers. Yes there are trainings each franchise or hotel brand has for the business, but ultimately it falls on those operating the hotel to enforce any trainings, rules, etc. Just like every business out there, you have people who care about their business and want it to operate well. And then you have the people who clearly don't care, and it shows in the rest of the business. Example, I'm sure everyone has gone to a Starbucks in one city where the staff and the team are on point and genuinely care about their customers and the quality of coffee they make. And then you go to a different Starbucks two cities over, and that one is a dumpster fire where the team clearly could not care less, the place is a mess, and the coffee basically tastes like water. Yet they are both a Starbucks franchise that are expected to follow the same rules and regulations set by the brand. But it's still on ownership and management to enforce these policies into their team. We could also go down the rabbit hole of finding and hiring employees who want to work well and are capable of following company policies, but that's for another conversation.
Now, at no point is a hotel team looking at reservations with the intent of trying to find problem people. We assume everyone is coming in for normal reasons, and we look forward to their business; however, after working at a hotel enough times, you start to see patterns and signs with reservations that will start to raise flags with the staff. I'll go over these flags, but please note that a single flag or two does not mean we think you're going to be a problem guest. We are simply trained to identify flags, and after enough of them, you'll likely cause us to start monitoring you.
We'll use your initial prompt of two individuals choosing to check in together. Does that raise any flags? Of course not. We get spouses, parents with kids, couples, friends etc. checking into our hotels on a daily basis. It would be highly discriminatory of us if that was all it took for us to immediately watch over you. You also have to realize that we're dealing with hundreds of individuals on a daily basis. Some hotels have as few as 40-50 rooms in their hotel, while others can have 200+. That's a lot for any team to have to keep up with it. But a skilled manager or front desk agent can pick up on certain red flags rather quickly and mentally clock or note down if this is something to monitor. Let's go over some very common red flags hotels deal with on a regular basis.
Locals: I think this is a major one that many people don't realize. Hotels HATE locals. Why? Locals statistically cause hotels major problems. Here's a simple way to think about it. The majority of our guests are from out of town. They're either staying with us for company business, here to visit family in town, attending a concert or wedding function at a nearby venue, etc. All of these involve people who don't normally live in town. So that brings us to our locals. What reasons are there for such situations? There are very valid ones, don't get me wrong. We have people who just dealt with a house fire and are waiting on repairs to get done, there could be a power outage on the other side of town and they need a place to stay in the meantime, maybe they just need a staycation away from the mayhem of everyday life. There are many valid situations. Here's the thing, this is really only 10-20% of local reservations. The other 80-90% tend to be problems. For me personally in my location, locals tend to be drug dealers/users or they tend to be extremely large families trying to throw a massive party. These types of individuals are murder on our guestrooms. They're more likely to trash the room excessively, smoke in our rooms, damage our rooms, bring in heavy outside traffic, and cause disturbances to the staff and other guests. Everything that a hotel can't stand to have happen. Every hotel has their own policy when dealing with locals. Some flat out don't allow them. Some require a heftier deposit at check-in. And some may not care. If you're choosing to stay at a hotel within your area, don't be surprised if you run into something like this. The hotel is simply doing what it needs to to protect the business, as these travelers are high risk. At my hotel, we flag your reservation to all staff if you're a local. My housekeepers are trained to be more thorough analyzing for damage and smoking, and my desk is trained to watch for financial problems at check-in, heavy traffic, noise complaints, and reports of smoke odors. I also require a mandatory daily housekeeping to make sure you aren't causing me problems in my room.
General Heavy/Unknown Traffic: This is a bit of a catch all and can mean a couple of different things. The biggest one would be parties. Let's pretend a couple checks in for a room with the reservation designating two people for room 101. Then we suddenly see you come back with an entourage of 3 other adults and 8 kids in swimsuits because you planned to throw a birthday party and use our pool. Or instead, that entourage shows up 10 minutes after you checked in and brazenly asks the desk "Can you point us to room 101?". We immediately know what's going and are likely to shut this down. Or for another twist, you decide to try and sneak this entourage at the side door or rear entrance, and we either clocked you doing so on the security cameras or heard you all being loud down the hall. Or maybe we didn't see any of this, but now we're getting noise complaints from your neighbors or can blatantly hear the party going on in the pool. This type of traffic is difficult to hide, and causes all kinds of problems for the hotel. Your booking is set for the number of guests you listed, and no more. You are paying for the hotel's amenities for you and the registered guests. These outsiders are not paying for anything, so they don't have the privilege of our services.
Now let's take this down a notch. Typically a hotel desk shift for check-in runs from 3-11pm. Desk workers during this time typically pay attention to the comings and goings of the hotel. Let's a guest checks in. And then 30 minutes later we see an individual we haven't interacted with enter the hotel and leave an hour later. And then we see another person we haven't interacted with do the exact same. We may be curious and start watching what room these people are going to, whether by security camera or by following them. If we clock a bunch of random outsiders coming and going from a room, we're now suspecting drug or sex work of some kind. This will be more alarming if we see the guest secretly letting these outsiders in from the side/rear entrances on a frequent basis.
Third Party Bookings: More casual bookers and travelers are much more likely to book via a 3rd party. The most common being Expedia or Booking.com by far. These themselves aren't a flag, but hotels aren't a fan of them because they're a hassle to deal with, and the hotel makes less profit because of the commission we have to pay to these third parties. There are two instances in which a third party booking becomes a flag. 1) You book via a very obscure third party. An example for my area is Hopper. We rarely see this booking, and when we have, they've more often than not been problem guests for us. 2) How you handle yourself after booking a third party. Hotels may have different policies when checking in a third party reservation. We may have to authorize your payment method for a larger amount for example. But if you start to raise a stink about it, have your card locked, or don't have enough funds to cover this additional authorization or deposit, that's a flag.
Hotels much prefer when you book with us directly. It takes out the middle man whenever issues arise, and we're less likely to have additional policies/guardrails against you.
Underaged guests: Not necessarily a flag, but the vast majority of hotels simply do not allow guests under the age of 21 to check in to a hotel themselves. It's quite uncommon to find a hotel that will allow just 18+ to check in for a reservation. Again, the reason being that guests under 21 typically bring problems, usually of the partying variety. I personally have my own policies/rules to weed out problems with underaged travelers. I've somewhat regularly had 18-19 year old travelers on military deployment, or they're in town by themselves for the first time visiting colleges, or they're a player on a team and they drove ahead of their parent. The easy way around this is to simply have someone 21+ check in for you; however, if we clock that this person is simply checking in for you, handing over the keys, and permanently leaving the hotel, you're probably on our radar a bit. Now if it's two people, one significantly older and one younger, this could be a variety of things. First instincts for the desk is simply that it's a parent and child. But depending on the interaction between the two individuals upon checkin, or demeanors as the two of you walk together through the hotel, there could be flags we're trained on that it's potentially human trafficking going on.
I do want to close this section of with hotel training in regards to Human Trafficking. Every brand I've worked under has some form of mandatory Sex Trafficking training for hotel management and staff. The main theme of every training is that we are looking to identify people being trafficked against their will. The most common themes we look for are underaged girls, typically who shows signs of harm or abuse and maybe can't speak for themselves if we get the sense that coercion or exploitation might be happening and they then have constant traffic of men in and out of their room which as discussed, brings red flags to the staff for any and all types of hotel guests.
Practical advice for sex workers using hotels
Many independent sex workers use hotels either to visit a client in his room for an outcall or using a hotel room to host clients for incalls. What practical advice would you give to someone who wants to avoid creating unnecessary concern for hotel staff or management while still staying safe themselves? eg: What behaviours immediately draw attention? What behaviours are generally considered normal and unobtrusive? Does clothing or presentation matter as much as people think? Are day-use rooms viewed differently from overnight stays? Is a local address a red flag? Why/why not? Is there a “right” way to receive visitors? What mistakes do you most commonly see people make? Are there particular hotel environments, eg luxury hotels, conference hotels, casino hotels, budget chains, airport hotels, boutique hotels, etc, that tend to be more tolerant or less tolerant?
So in regards to how independent sex workers and escorts can avoid raising red flags against themselves and their clients, I will follow with my best bits of practical advice. Please note, there is not "wrong or right" way to go about your business. Every action you take can simply be a flag, and you are taking more and more of a risk with the more flags you raise. Some hotels may come at you after just one flag. Some hotels may do absolutely nothing if you throw every flag possible. Our goal here is to simply mitigate as many flags as possible to lower risk of anything happening to you.
Traffic: Ultimately, escorting is a business, and workers are trying to maximize their profit. I'm aware that some escorts may choose to book a hotel and host multiple clients in one day or over the course of a reservation. Every time a new individual is entering your room, whether you take them with you or they go to the room by themselves, that is the #1 flag you could ever raise to us. I would strongly encourage escorts to limit hotel sessions to just one or two individuals for one stay. I know for many this can be financially problematic, but you're really taking a huge gamble by trying to take on too many clients at one time at a hotel. For this situation, I'd say you're better of with an incall at your own place, but that obviously comes with its own risks and problems. I do not want to claim that I know the escort business, and I don't want to say I know how to do this best. But from a hotel stand point, you're really making things obvious to us whenever unusual traffic goes in and out of a single room. This is the #1 reason I have caught sex work, but it tends to lean more towards reckless pimps and their workers bringing in traffic without properly vetting or controlling the situation. I have personally never caught a proper escort keeping things on the down low because they did not bring in heavy traffic. Only once have I and my staff suspected it, but there were no red flags of traffic, they simply were with one guy, so we let it be.
Entrance of a Client or Escort to the hotel: How an escort chooses to have their clients enter a hotel can cause red flags, or vice versa if we're talking about outcalls and the escort arriving later. Overall there are 3 ways to go about this.
1) Meeting outside/off-site: Personally, this one is my favorite. The perfect scenario would be one of you checking into the hotel, you've noted on your reservation that there will be two adults, you go to your room to get all set up, and you meet your client/escort outside somewhere and bring them in. Go through the lobby, have casual conversation, go to your room, the hotel staff would think nothing of this. It's not unusual for us to have a husband and wife, boyfriend/girlfriend, family, etc. be coming at different times to a hotel. Just come together, act casually, and you're good to go. Now this situation would not work as well in a couple of different scenarios. If you frequent the same hotel over and over, the hotel staff mildly knows you, and we see you with a different partner each time, that could raise eyebrows. You also can't play this stunt off as easily if you're seeing multiple clients in one day. For escorts who see multiple clients and may want to stay anonymous, I would encourage maybe rotating hotels from time-to-time so that staff may not have as strong a memory of you and who you typically bring with you.
2) Having the client/escort go to your room after you've checked in: This option is okay in my book; however, you are putting a lot of faith in the other party following directions, acting normal, and not raising their own red flags to the staff without you present. I would maybe only encourage this with people you've properly screened and know how to follow directions or regulars you've already established a good working relationship with. Personal story, after talking with a new escort I had a session with, she told me about a client who had gone to the front desk and asked for her after not knowing where she was (obviously gave the staff her working name which they didn't have). This is the kind of scenario you want to avoid. If you choose to go this route, make sure to give your client/escort as much guidance as possible. Give them your room number, tell them where the elevator or stairs are located, let them know exactly where to meet you, whether the elevator requires a guest key and how you need to proceed if so, do they need to knock on your door or simply enter your room because you have the latch open. The individual simply needs to enter the hotel and act like they are a guest, not some lost outsider. Friendly greetings with other guests and staff are fine, and if anything will keep suspicions down. Just blend in, simple as that.
3) Sneaking your client in from a side entrance: Please just don't this. Hotels hate when anyone sneaks people in. You're making it obvious that you're bringing in outsiders that you haven't registered. We deal regularly with individuals sneaking in other people (and pets!); you're not fooling anybody. One good general rule of thumb: Assume every hotel has cameras at their entrances and that somebody could be watching. I can't encourage you enough to just not take this tactic.
Clothing: I won't get too detailed here, but I will simply say to please use a bit of common sense. There is a line to be crossed where what individuals choose to wear could start to raise eyeballs. Just to put it bluntly because I don't know a better way to say it, don't dress like a side-street prostitute. Dress in normal attire. Dress in your lazy comfy clothes. Dress classy! Classy is totally fine, it's not unusual for us to have guests plan a fun night out on the town. If you're showing a bit of skin, that's fine. But be aware that we likely have families with children staying at the hotel too, so don't overdo it to the point where they are complaining to us about you. Do not come out in the lobby or hallway dressed like you plan to for your client when your door closes and your session starts. If you have a client requesting you meet them in such attire outside, I would strongly encourage you take control of the situation and tell your client otherwise, or find yourself a different, more humble client.
Hotel Type/Environments: There are so many different types of hotels, and each one has their pros and cons. The easiest ones to blend in and keep red flags low would be larger, conference style hotels. Think the massive giants with meeting space, ballrooms, restaurants, and likely 200-300+ rooms. The lobbies are huge, and there are multiple ways to get into the building without having to be snuck in. The traffic in the hotel is likely already so high, staff can't keep track of every person coming and going. It's easy to blend in in this setting. However, this style of hotel is much more likely to have security cameras and maybe even their own security. So you still want to keep things cool and not draw attention to yourself. Again, the heavy traffic is this big one. Now, the smaller the hotel you go, the more difficult it is for you to "sneak in". Staff have less people to deal with and are more likely to recognize who's a guest and who is not. But they are less likely to have their own security or man power to keep track of everything, and maybe not as many cameras (but entrances are still the big areas where they likely will). There is also the stereotype of a more expensive hotel versus a low budget hotel. Low budget hotels typically draw in more problematic clientele (locals, drug dealers, and stereotypically sex traffickers). You're potentially less likely to be stereotyped as a sex worker at a higher end hotel, but obviously the hotel is more costly and eats into your bottom line. You could save money at a cheaper hotel, but depending on how you present yourself and if you've presented other red flags, you may get stereotyped more easily. However; these low budget hotels are also looking to get whatever money they can. They could be more likely to turn a blind eye to your red flags. Likewise, the high end hotel may take your red flags more seriously for the sake of their reputation, so one or two flags may be enough to have them request you to leave. This also leads to the next situation:
Day-Use: I was actually taken aback by how much this topic came up during my AMA. Personally, at my hotel, I don't play in Day Use, both the booking site, or the general term of it meaning that you’re paying to use a room for only a few hours. Most smaller hotels don’t have the capacity to clean a room throughout the day. Once the room is used, it’s gone until the next day when we have housekeeping again. I would rather sell that room to someone who will book it for the full day than waste it to someone paying half the rate for a few hours. In my opinion, there are only two types of hotels that likely play in Day Use rooms. Hotels that have the regular manpower (i.e. evening housekeeping) to quickly turn that room over to still make standard profit on a regular booking; or, hotels that are struggling to sell all their rooms, and would rather make a little profit on that room than nothing at all.
Kind of going back to where we discussed locals, Day Use rooms have their own stereotype. The “good” stereotype would be someone who simply needs to take a quick nap or refresh before heading back out on the road. But normally, Day Use rooms are almost guaranteed to be stereotyped as some sort of illegal activity. I understand that paying less for a room for just a session time is appealing, but simply booking this type of stay will almost guarantee a red flag. If paired with any previous red flags, the hotel could likely start to take action.
Surveillance, monitoring, and guest privacy
Many people have exaggerated ideas about how much hotels monitor guests. What kinds of monitoring systems are actually common in modern hotels? eg: CCTV, Keycard tracking, Wi-Fi packet sniffing, Incident reporting systems, Software used to log notes about guests, Chain-wide, state-wide or nationwide shared blacklists, Facial recognition tech? And how much attention do staff actually pay to individual guests?
With this topic, I'm going to be open that most of my knowledge and experience comes from medium to smaller scale hotels. Larger scale hotels likely have heavier monitoring capabilities that I just don't have experience with. That being said, I can still cover basic hotel surveillance and guest monitoring.
I want to answer that last question first. How much attention do we pay to individual guests? Not much unless we have to. We've been going over various flags and how to keep them low or non-existent. If you start to raise flags with the hotel team, now we may start to actually pay attention to individual guests or the people they are bringing in. Here's a basic example. A group checks in and we find a completely separate family comes in that they've invited to use our pool for a birthday party. We may approach you and tell you the other family has to leave otherwise we'll make you leave the hotel. Even if they oblige, you better believe we've passed the message onto the rest of the team and we're keeping an eye on you to make sure you don't sneak more friends and family into the hotel.
The most basic type of security that many (not all) hotels will have is security cameras. Every hotel handles this differently, and it ultimately comes down to cost. Some may just have them at certain locations (entrances, elevator landings, front desk), some may include more common areas (hallways, restaurant/breakfast/bar, public area entrances), and you may get more specific (parking lots, elevators themselves). For most security systems, the more cameras you have the more costly to upkeep, so it's safe to say that larger hotels that are more profitable will cover more area. Smaller hotels may only cover the basics. Even though some hotels may have no monitoring, or even dummy cameras to pretend they have monitoring, I would always assume that at least all entrances to the hotel, elevator landings, and the front desk have cameras watching over them.
Who has access to these cameras vary from location to location. Again, it's safe to assume that upper management can review camera footage. Select locations may give their front desk access to security cameras (I do this, and it's done my hotel wonders stamping out problem guests). I won't say that hotels have staff that monitors cameras 24/7 unless we're getting into casino hotels or larger conference hotels that may have their own security team. These may be likely, but it's not worth the money and labor for the rest of us smaller hotels. It's also important to note if the hotel actually has a good team in place. I've hired workers who care about their job, stay at the front desk, interact with people, and pay attention to their surroundings. I've also hired people who end up being lazy and doing the absolute bare minimum. Some hotels may have a desk team who hide away only until they see someone coming to the desk. You may also have a person who sees red flags, but doesn't want to get involved and will let anything slide. The character of the hotel employees and management matter when it comes to their attentiveness to the comings and going of our guests.
Now when it actually comes to viewing camera footage, if the hotel desk team doesn't have access to it, but they or management get red flags regarding a situation, management may start to investigate camera footage to see what's been going on. Again, not worth my time to watch footage 24/7, but if enough problems with a guest come up, then I'll start to investigate.
Now regarding Wifi Packet sniffing, I actually had to look this up to even know what it was. Could this be possible? Sure, but I don't see a world where a hotel is doing this. Again, it's not worth the time and money for its use. When it comes to actual internet data & security, the only times in my history we've ever had to use this feature is if I need to get in touch with my management company's tech team to look into a security breach or a system outage. Are we snooping into guest history and searches? I can say with almost 100% certainty, no. This is something law enforcement would be doing. Facial Recognition I will also throw towards a maybe with bigger casino/conference hotels. I don't know if they're doing it, but I can see this being a thing down the line. Again, the cost of it seems too high for me to see it as worth people's time now. Maybe when the technology becomes cheaper.
Regarding Keycard tracking, this I assume you mean our ability to read door locks. Yes, we have the power to do so, but we only do it if there is a need. For example, just last week we had an odd chemical odor in a room that came suddenly when the room had been vacant for days. I am able to read the lock to identify who has been in and out of that room in the past 'X' days I'm searching. I can use this tool at any time, but again I am only doing so if there is a major security reason that I need to look into. This feature simply tells me what keys are used in the room (the guest's actual key, a specific master key, etc.) and what time. I usually use this feature in conjunction with security footage to paint me a picture of what I'm investigating.
One thing that many people don't realize is that most brands/chains don't communicate that well with each other. If Mr. Smith caused me a problem at my hotel, I can and will document the issue in your reservation profile and our own in-house log; however, this information isn't transferred over to the same hotel chain/franchise in the city next door or across the country. Our systems currently aren't capable of doing that. Further, and to be blunt, there are some crappy hotels out there. I've heard the stories of some hotels kicking out guests for pretty cruddy reasons. If that hotel suddenly put awful notes about you, is the hotel on the other side of town really going to trust them? We would be getting into heavy issues of discrimination with that kind of power. The only main things that track with you are if you set yourself up with a hotel's loyalty program and provide us with your room/stay preferences. Stuff like that will follow your profile to other hotels within the same franchise, but not behavior or red flags that individual hotels log on you. Now one thing to note is that many hotels within an area may have a good relationship with each other or may be under the same management company/ownership. Fun fact, if you see 2-4 hotels all next door to each other, 95% chance they are owned by the same people. In these instances, if we have guests that cause us problems, we very well indeed may call each other and let them know if we've kicked out a guest or had problems with them.
Here's the biggest problem when it comes to actually "blacklisting" a guest. Hotels have a very high turnover rate compared to many other industries. And I've worked at hotels with very long blacklists. It's completely impractical for new employees to know and memorize every name on a possible blacklist. We don't have the time, nor is it appropriate, for us to review every single person that enters our doors to see if they've ever wronged our hotel. Personally, I've done away with blacklists at hotels I run unless you were a massive problem at our hotel. Even then, how long am I going to hold you to it? If you show up 5 years later, will I still be blacklisting you? Maybe. But will I or my team still even be there to remember? Unlikely; however, there are hotels that have workers who've been there for 15+ years. If you stirred up enough trouble, it's possible the veteran employees will remember you and tell their management and desk team about you. My current hotel has many workers who've been there for 10+ years, while I was only there for 2-3. They love to look through guests coming in and tell me about bad histories with some of them. In which I then look through old reservations and notes to find out if I need to stop you from staying with me.
Hotels and law enforcement
There’s a lot of uncertainty among sex workers about how hotels interact with police. In practice, when will hotel staff cooperate with law enforcement, and when will they push back or require formal legal process? eg: Would you normally require a subpoena or warrant before releasing guest information? How do hotels typically respond to welfare checks? What happens if police want to operate a sting operation at your hotel? Are there situations where staff are legally required to report concerns immediately? Do hotel managers generally prioritize protecting guest privacy, avoiding liability, avoiding disruption, or something else?
This is probably my favorite topic, only because it's very tricky to handle, there is a lot of grey area to work with, and it's a huge challenge for hotel staff as well. We'll start with the easiest answer. If hotel law enforcement ever shows up at my property with a warrant, we're obviously going to comply. We're going to follow the law when required and not put ourselves in legal jeopardy. Now, in my 10 years of working a hotel, I have yet to have police come to my location with a warrant. What's more common is police randomly showing up and asking questions about possible activity in the area and/or a person they're looking for who they believe may be at the property. How this information is provided on a case-by-case basis by the hotel.
I will start this scenario off by saying I have a mixed relationship with the law enforcement. I was personally raised by parents who made sure I didn't just "let law enforcement in" or provide them with anything they ask for. As soon as you let them in your door (either at home or in your place of business), you've given up all control to them. I've also seen too many times law enforcement use their authority to intimidate me or my team to give them information they're looking for, and I have strong ethical issues with people who do this. Because of all this, I am one who trains my hotel team to never assist with law enforcement without a warrant and that they are always to call me first and I will deal with them. A hotel's job is first and foremost to protect our guests. You're under our roof, and it's our job to keep you and your information private. We aren't telling other guests that you are staying at our hotel (we don't know who they are or their relationship to you) and this rule applies to law enforcement too. I once had law enforcement come to my team asking for information on someone, my team told them they needed a warrant and that we can't, and the police then got angry at my team and told them "Your manager must love running a drug ring then." And guess what. I reported that behavior to their supervisor and the mayor of my town. I don't tolerate that nonsense; however, I am likely a rare breed here. Some hotels will help law enforcement for any situation every time they show up. They either don't want to be in a bad relationship with local law enforcement, or they see no reason to hide information that police specifically is looking for. Now please note that if we deny police access to your information or to a guest room, that does not stop them from roaming my halls or patrolling the area. Personally, I don't mind when they do this. It gives some guests a sense of security.
Now, I'm going to completely back track on everything I've just said and state that there are times in which I do willingly give information to the police if they come asking. I have had guests who have raised a number of red flags in my hotel in the past. Usually the biggest ones being locals who are bringing in a noticeable amount of outside traffic to my hotel. If you're already on our radar, and police suddenly show up asking about you, I've put two-and-two together and am likely going to cooperate to get you off my property since I was planning to figure out how to do so anyway. You getting caught doing suspicious activity in my hotel is likely to prevent you from staying with me in the future, so it's a win-win for me. I also have a relationship with my local police investigative team. If I have a guest that's causing a lot of red flags, I may ask if the police know anything about you, and if so, request that they patrol my hotel to keep an eye on suspicious activity. Usually when this happens, my problem guest is aware of the heightened security and opt to check out the next day and not come back.
Welfare checks are an interesting topic, and my desk teams struggle with this one. But not with authorities, but more with when your family is calling. We've had times when parents, spouses, etc. will call the hotel thinking their loved one is at the hotel and is concerned for your safety. Even if the story sounds difficult and is pulling at our heart strings, we still can't give out that information. Usually what I tell my team to say is "If this person is here, we will pass along the information that you called." In these instances, we will personally reach out to the guest and explain the call we had. We've had guests who are purposely hiding from abusive situations, overbearing parents/spouses, you name it. The worst I ever dealt with is a woman who's ex-husband was staying at our hotel (who was an awful human being to my staff, his girlfriend who was also staying, and a likely heavy drug user) who had their infant and wasn't responding to her calls and she just wanted to make sure that her baby was okay. It killed me to have to tell her I couldn't give out info, but I made it a point to talk to the jerk guest and tell him he needed to call his baby mama. Now all this to say, if police come visit us to do a welfare check, we are likely to comply with this request. As intimidating as police can be with their authority, I have never once believed they lied to me and my team that a welfare check was requested on an individual. If someone's actual safety and well being is at risk, we're going to help. Just the same as if a guest were to call 911 needing an ambulance or help, I'm not suddenly going to prevent help, I'm going to assist in getting you help that's been requested.
Now when it comes to stings, I have only once ever run into this situation. For this, the police came specifically asking for me for my permission to host a sting at my property. Legally, the authorities need a warrant and permission to do so. They can't just rent a room and do it without us knowing. They made it a point to let me know what the purpose of the sting was for, how it would operate, and that everything would be done "discretely". In this instance, I declined to help them with the operation. In my mind, there is too much risk for me and the hotel. Personally, I don't believe anything that authorities would do can be "discrete". If their sting is successful, I will have guests witnessing possible traffic in and out of my hotel, and possibly an arrest. That could leave a bad image/reputation to my property that I don't want to have to deal with. I could lose future business. And I don't want an eventual known sting to paint my hotel as being a problem hotel that everyone should avoid. Now, I would imagine if a hotel is having major problems with illegal activity going on, they may be willing to help host a sting, as public knowledge of this could stamp out the problem from continuing. This situation is a really a cost-benefit analysis. To me, the cost was too high for no gain at my property.
Regarding times when we legally have to report issues/concerns, if we have strong evidence of illegal activity going on, we're likely to report it. If I've gathered enough evidence that someone is illegally selling drugs or is sex trafficking, I'm going to report the problem, but again, I need strong evidence of it. In my history, we're more likely to find ourselves reporting issues of abuse and violence at our hotel, as this takes very little evidence to confirm. We've had drunken fights in our lobbies or my worst is the sounds of arguing and fighting happening between two individuals in a room that gets reported to my team. This is typically when we quickly have law enforcement called over.
This topic overall truly covers the general idea thought process of "don't cause the hotel problems." It sounds pretty easy and straightforward, but it's amazing the number of guests who just can't carry themselves in an appropriate manner. We don't want to report you to the police. We don't want to be monitoring you 24/7. We want you to stay at our property and have a good time at the location or in town, and we want you to keep coming back to the hotel. But if you start giving us red flags and reason to believe that you are going to be a problem guest, we may start to take action. You causing a disruption to our hotel, my team, and my guests is not worth the money of your 1-2 night stay. Red flags can be seen and noticed by my staff and my guests. This can cause my team to feel uncomfortable and want to quit, and my guests to feel uncomfortable and never want to stay again. All of that costs us money, and we would rather never see you again than risk losing employees or other futures guests.
Safety tips, misconceptions, and hotel etiquette
Are there any practical tips you’d give relating to: Using a hotel room for a photoshoot, Freestyling in hotel bars, Calling reception prior to an outcall and asking to speak to Mr X in room Y, to confirm he's genuinely checked in and not some kind of timewaster.
For a hotel photo shoot, simply call and ask the hotel desk if this is going to be okay. It's likely in this instance that they will get a manager involved to get their approval. For a photoshoot, it's assumed you will be bringing in a lot of equipment and some outside traffic. If you don't bring this to our attention, it will come off as a red flag and a problem to deal with. But if you're up front that it's for a photoshoot, the details of the photographer's business, a business card, letting us know that the individuals will be coming and then leaving and won't cause a problem, then it's possible we'll let you move forward without an issue. It's possible a hotel may not be okay with this, and you need to respect that. A hotel may not like the visual look of traffic going in and out of your room and how that may be perceived by other guests. Many hotels also have very distinct features, so your photos may give away exactly the hotel you did the photoshoot at. And we have no control of how our hotel will be perceived in your photos and where they will be seen. Please see things from our point of view if we have concerns and respect that we may not be okay with it.
If you're going to be freestyling at a hotel bar, just be careful how obvious you are making your intentions. Of any staff member in a hotel, the bartender is probably the most chill and the person you want on your side. They've seen it all, and they know more secrets about our guests than anyone. At the same time, they're making sure to keep the hotel's best interest at heart (as well as their own job). Be respectful or classy in how you dress, and keep your conversations to you and who you are with or are meeting. Don't cause disruptions to other guests who are nearby. And be cautious of who you choose to approach. When alcohol is involved in any capacity, people get a little too relaxed and you may not be able to control the situation and what the other party says/does. If you are a regular freestyler at a hotel bar, be cognizant that the hotel bartender/team may start to recognize you. In these situations, hopefully you are a hotel guest or can play off being one, otherwise it may be more obvious that you have other intentions at the location.
If you are working an outcall in which a client arrives to the hotel first, and you need to screen for your safety that your client is at their room, please give instructions to your client that this is your protocol. They need to provide their name (do your screenings!) and the room number and expect your call. If you call the hotel front desk, we will not transfer you to a room unless you are able to provide us a name and room number. You being able to do so proves to us that this information was given to you by the guest, and we won't have any suspicions with you doing so. If you only provide a name or a room number by itself, we cannot transfer you.