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You Can Call Me Al
Err Travel · November 1, 2002

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 guest awake 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?

Dr. Terry Riley is a psychologist and travel security authority. He is author of the popular book Travel Can Be Murder. Visit his site at http://www.appliedpsychology.com or e-mail him at terry@ticked.com.