In addition to new airline and hotel fees, add this to your list of travel worries: the dangers of room service.
Hotel lawyer Stephen Barth, writing on his HospitalityLawyer.org blog, cautions hoteliers from letting guests order their breakfasts by using those old-fashioned, door-hanger forms. What could be the possible danger in that?
Easy,
Besides typical breakfast menu choices, these door-hanger forms also reveal how many orders are placed and for what time frame.
These aren’t mundane details if placed in the wrong hands, Barth warns.
"If a person with criminal intent picks it up, they are now loaded with intelligence: a good probability that someone is alone in the room (assuming the guest indicated service for one), and a time frame when the occupant is expecting a delivery in the early morning…so the occupant’s guard may be down," he writes.
The equally simple solution: Barth urges hoteliers to stop using the old-fashioned paper forms and take advantage of any number of higher-tech means to fill guests’ room-service breakfast orders.
Use the telephone or TV system or even the internet, he adds.
By David Wilkening
