Long time lurker, first time caller.
I hope this entry doesn’t violate any rules, but I wanted to take a bit of a sounding of the community here about an experience a friend of mine had while on her honeymoon in Italy.
My friend, we shall called her V, was staying at a hotel in Italy – the hotel is quite a nice standalone hotel, by standalone I mean it’s not part of an international chain ie. Hilton, Best Western etc.
V, perhaps naively, leaves 700 euro in an envelope in the safe in her room and goes out for the day – the safe’s door is left ajar but the cupboard door closed. V returns some hours later, and finds the room has been serviced – but the cupboard door is now ajar and upon inspection she finds her 700 Euro is gone. The room has not been broken into as far as she can tell - so her first suspicion is the cleaning staff. She files a report with the police with the assistance of the hotel staff – the staff later admit it is highly likely the cleaning staff who made off with the cash as that particular cleaning person drops off the grid following this incident.
V pays her bill and returns to Australia with the hotel planning to check with their insurer to see if they will cover the loss of the cash. This week they got back to V and the insurer unsurprisingly will not cover the loss – their response was to offer a couple of nights free accommodation at their hotel as compensation. V views this as something of an offer they don’t genuinely expect to ever have to honour, Italy is a long way from Australia and V not being a regular jetsetter will find it difficult to ever use these free nights. The hotel’s response to that is pretty much too bad so sad.
So Bad_Service – is this bad service? V complained bitterly to me about it today but I am having trouble condemning the hotel. If the safe had been locked and the cleaning staff still managed to get it out then I’d be more sympathetic. A lot of places probably would have said too bad so sad from the beginning, at least this hotel tried. But if you are prepared to admit your staff stole from a guest should you not at least try to provide some kind of genuine compensation? Even if you offer to refund half of the stolen funds? V fully intends to write horrid reviews on every website she can find - in today’s world this kind of negative publicity could cost you some business – would it make better financial sense to meet her halfway at least?
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