The shipping clerk at the local Biloxi Office Depot was taken aback by the address to which I was forwarding a box chock full of G2E presentation material, a few spare pairs of boxers, and enough pocket-sized bottles of Purell® to make the germaphobic Howard R. Hughes (if he wasn’t dead) at ease enough to bump elbows with Howie Mandel. The young clerk nearly shrieked with incredulity, “Is the hotel’s name really Horrible Harry’s?! The name certainly doesn’t instill much confidence.”
Prior to delving into the subsequent case of Horribly Harry’s sub-par supererogation, setting the context of why the concept of “obligation beyond duty” is relevant to hospitality is a logical step.
While not formally codified, a culture of hospitality customs and actions that are acceptable or unacceptable has been established since biblical times. I know this because I spend an awful lot of time in hotel rooms, as those who are “edu-tained” by my presentations on the gaming conference circuit can confirm. Once I exhaust the morning marathon of “Saved by the Bell” reruns (two words: Kelly Kapowski) and start thinking about getting out of bed, the greatest procrastination tool in the history of mankind beckons. I open the dresser drawer and look to a Gideon’s Bible (mostly because gamblers sometimes stash money between the pages to keep it safe from wives and/or whores, harlots, abominators, adulterers and other modern incarnations of biblical no-good nicks).
In “Travelers and Strangers: Hospitality in the Biblical World,” Dennis Bratcher relays:
“Customs concerning how a person should treat travelers and temporary residents were much different in biblical times. They were more than simply ways to be polite or friendly, and went beyond entertaining guests. Hospitality customs were a vital part of the culture of the ancient world. The people followed these customs as formal, even sacred, codes of conduct … The entire ‘code’ of hospitality in the Middle East was so strong that it evoked a warning: ‘Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares’ (Hebrews 13:2).”
Rev. Kevin Moroney’s sermon for the fifth Sunday after Trinity, titled “A Stranger at the Door,” recounts the peculiar situation of nomads, from whom today’s salary-man road warriors descended … although a nomad was more concerned with finding shelter and hydrating camels than returning his rented SUV with a full tank or whether his hard-earned upgrade at the Hilton will be bestowed. Still, the rules of the road seem hardwired into wanderers regardless of the era. The sermon reads:
“The laws of hospitality were developed by nomadic people to ensure their safety and well-being, not only of the travelers, but also of those who took them in. In days when homes were less secure and weapons less effective, what better way to determine if a stranger was a friend or a foe than by providing for his basic needs and getting a better sense of them? One who entered a home as a stranger never left the same way — they either became an honored guest or an enemy. Travel was common, public inns were a rarity, and any person in that society knew that at some time they too might be dependent on the hospitality of others as they traveled the countryside. These laws, therefore, were designed to provide a certain level of order and security in society (i.e., a sense of duty).”
Modern order and a security framework are constructed on the premise of the division of labor. That is, if everyone completes the minimum duty (e.g., stopping at a red light or not wearing spandex if one’s body mass index exceeds 25), everything should work out. The Theson Gaele Law Encyclopedia defines duty as “a legal obligation that entails mandatory conduct or performance.” Supererogation, on the other hand, is a descriptor of efforts that are above and beyond the call of duty. The question to ponder while reviewing the following case is whether a hotel with an agreement to house a guest is bound (under the modern “codes” of hospitality) merely by the legal definition of duty or whether supererogation should be a de facto hospitality practice.
Did Horrible Harry’s Dismiss its Duty?
My Allegiant Air direct flight from Biloxi/Gulfport to Las Vegas was a little late, but only enough to reflect that the Transportation Security Administration had delayed the boarding stampede. (The “temporary solution” Airborne Rangers had determined it was necessary to relieve an obviously al-Qaida-affiliated toddler of a 3.5-ounce aerosol can of Spider-Man Web Shooter Silly String.)
Excited about presenting at the United State’s largest congregation of gaming professionals and other miscreants the next morning, but tired from traveling, I pulled into the parking lot of Horrible Harry’s Hotel & Casino at about 10 p.m. I had stayed there before while presenting at other conferences and found the accommodations adequate. The bundle package of air and hotel through Allegiant was a better deal than booking the flight and hotel à la carte … or so I thought.
With reservation in hand at the front desk, I requested to check in. The Horrible Harry’s clerk (we’ll call him K.L.), however, informed me that there were no rooms left.
Huh? What the three cans of Aqua Net Extra Super Hold in Wayne Newton’s hair? I thought. I had worked the front desk in a Las Vegas hotel/casino and always thought that a reservation held with a credit card meant that the hotel would hold a room for an entire evening. In a 24-hour town with no last-call, what is late, anyway?
Had the proverbial reservation shoe been on the other foot and I had not shown up at all, the hotel would have charged my card up the wazoo to compensate for not being able to sell my room to another patron.
In simple terms, I had been off-loaded from Horrible Harry’s. In hospitality parlance, I was “walked.” Although my UPS-shipped box of belongings was sitting at the front desk, leaving one to logically deduce that I would soon arrive to claim it, my room had been sold out from under me.
With the drive to maximize revenue via yield management, many hospitality outlets (e.g., hotels and airlines) over-sell with the expectation that a certain percentage of guests will be “no shows.” Squeezing out the lowest-profit-margin customers — the cheapskates on the wholesale bundled deals — has devolved into an occasionally accepted dirty little secret of the travel industry. (For the record, however, a bundled room might actually be considered better secured than a simple credit card reservation, as the contractual obligation has been “pre-paid.”)
Either way, hospitality venues are supposed to “make good” on a promise — their “guarantee” of a room. Again, the matter at hand is to what degree a hotel should follow the code of hospitality and practice “obligation beyond regulation.” The crux is whether a casino hotel has an obligation beyond its legal duty to take care of a guest with whom it has entered a legal contract (i.e., a room reservation).
Questions about “The Law”
The salient core of a not-so-simple question is, “What is a guaranteed reservation?” And why are commercial lodging establishments allowed to overbook and walk a confirmed guest? One answer, according to the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research article “Overbooking: The Practice and the Law” (Vol. 17, No. 2, 93–105 (1994)) by University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Robert H. Wilson, et al., is.:
“Overbooking in hotels is a strategy designed to respond to the problem of lost revenue due to no-shows and late cancellations. Most legal authorities agree that when overbooking results in walking guests, a breach of contract occurs. Under certain circumstances, it may constitute fraud or misrepresentation as well. In addition, certain overbooking practices likely fall under the ambit of state consumer protection statutes prohibiting unfair and deceptive acts and practices. Overbooking practices need to be scrutinized to bring them into compliance with these statutes, so as to protect individual hotels, management companies, franchises and the industry as a whole from the specter of potential class action lawsuits possible pursuant to many consumer protection statutes.”
A second perspective is offered in an Oct. 11, 2007, post titled “What to do when your hotel is overbooked,” where SmarterTravel.com’s Ed Perkins opined:
“…What are your rights when you arrive at the desk to find no room? As far as I can tell, at least in most of the country, you have no specific right, as you do with an overbooked airline flight. Instead, your right is strictly a matter of contract law: Your reservation is a contract, which the hotel is unable to fill.”
A third interpretation of hotel consumer rights is presented by Nolo.com. Its authority states:
“Overbooking is a common practice whereby an airline, hotel or other company accepts more reservations than it has seats or rooms available, on the presumption that a certain percentage of people will not show up. Airlines have a legal right to overbook, while hotels do not. A hotel must find a room for everyone who has a reservation and shows up on time. An airline may be required to offer compensation for people involuntarily bumped from a flight, depending on several factors, including how long they must wait for another flight.” (Emphasis added.)
Jurisprudence has been established in a few cases, including hotel overbooking. According to classactionlitigation.com, in Bucholtz v. Sirotkin Travel Service, a Las Vegas hotel overbooked and walked customers and the travel agent was liable for failing to investigate the reliability of the tour wholesaler. Further, the travel agent’s duty to investigate continues even after the initial deposit is made, as established in Barton v. Wonderful World of Travel; a travel agent is required to keep in contact with the hotel up to 30 days before departure.
Addressing the diverse interpretations of the ethical and legal intricacies of overbooking, in an article for the September 2005 issue of Journal of Hospitality titled “Overbooking Instigates Hotel Rage: The Guarantee That’s Not Exactly Guaranteed” (Issue 2, Volume 1), Esquire’s Linda K. Enghagen and Robert H. Wilson write:
“Overbooking certainly isn’t peculiar to the hotel industry. It is widely known that the airline industry routinely overbooks and indeed some passengers look forward to the prospect of the free tickets and cash that often go to those who are bumped. It is, in fact, the genesis of an often repeated mantra of the hotel industry: ‘The airlines do it, so we can do it.’ Unfortunately for the hotel industry, it’s just not true.
“The airline industry is federally regulated and heavily regulated at that. Airlines can overbook because federal regulations allow it. And one of the reasons the compensation to bumped passengers is so attractive is because that’s regulated, too. Hotels are not regulated under federal law, they’re regulated under the laws of the various states in which they’re located. And state laws simply don’t include provisions for walking and compensating would-be hotel guests. There’s another difference, too. Airlines don’t ask customers if they want to guarantee their seats with a credit card. Hotels routinely ask prospective guests if they wish to guarantee their rooms this way, however. And the word guarantee has a way of creating expectations on the part of guests. It tends to make them believe the room will be there no matter what, and there’s nothing more they need to do — like call to confirm a day or so before their scheduled arrival. Why should anyone need to do that with a guaranteed reservation? The answer to that, of course, is because of the possibility the hotel overbooked. They’re less likely to walk someone who called to confirm. But hotel overbooking is not part of the common knowledge of many travelers. Hence, front desk clerks sometimes find themselves on the receiving end of the newest rage — hotel rage.” (Emphasis added.)
Comparable Schmorarable
If my situation were brought before a jury, the relevant question would be: Did Horrible Harry’s fulfill its legal duty and provide the lodging experience for which I paid? Could the substitution provided be considered a fair substitute, a comparable product?
With casino hotels, or hotels of any kind, there are reasonable consumer expectations with regard to what a guest might anticipate in terms of relative degrees of hospitality offered. Further, the criteria set by the oracles of travel should provide some parameters and even standardization to the judgment process of whether a facility is comparable.
Stars or diamonds are one means of evaluation, brand (and its associated consistency) is another. When one checks into a Mobil Five Star, AAA Five Diamond, Michelin Five Red Pavilion or Wynn-level hotel (i.e., Wynn Las Vegas has earned all of these accolades), one expects a certain level of facility, service and amenities in exchange for a premium price. To borrow a line from Lloyd Bentsen, “Horrible Harry’s … you are no Wynn.”
But to be fair, while less than a few miles away from The Wynn, Horrible Harry’s is not the recipient of the same travel guide honors as The Wynn, nor does it claim to be in the same strata of excellence. Horrible Harry’s is a perfectly functional, “value conscience,” AAA three-out-of-five Diamond off-Strip casino hotel.
I Didn’t Sign Up for This
I offered the front desk the names and locations of casino hotels that one could consider immediate competitors with like, if not exact, product offering (e.g., a similarly priced, three-star casino hotel within a mile or two of the Las Vegas strip, such as the Orleans, Gold Coast, Tuscany, etc.). The list of hotels I presented was comprised of comparably priced alternatives and did not include outrageous requests like the Presidential Suite at the Four Seasons or the Hefner Suite at the Palms.
The hotel to which I was walked, however, was not superior, nor even comparable; it was simply inferior by many objective industry standards.
Whether Horrible Harry’s had the legal “right” to walk me is debatable as per the legal interpretations above. But as to whether Horrible Harry’s — a member of the hospitality industry and a representative of a top hospitality destination in the world — subscribed to what makes “customers into disciples” (to use a Harrah’s-ism), going beyond the obligation of its duty, the simple answer is an unqualified “no.”
The lodging I was walked to — and the only choice provided besides finding a hotel on my own and paying walk-in/transient retail rates — was the Down Hill Motor Lodge, a long-term stay operation mostly populated with individuals who (upon investigation) were part of a welfare-to-work style retraining program. It was the commercial lodging equivalent of a residential “Section 8,” complete with piles of uncollected garbage in the halls.
Located about 3.5 miles further away from the Strip than Horrible Harry’s, in what might be euphemistically called an ethnic celebratory section of Clark County, the property could not claim the first rule of real estate. In fact it harbored the antitheses, “No location, no location, no location.”
These lower-echelon establishments do serve a niche in the commercial lodging/hospitality market, but I would not choose to stay at this particular facility — even when considering my academic’s budget. The Down Hill Motor Lodge offered only once-weekly maid service, no restaurants and no recreational outlets — not even a pool. It didn’t even have what could be considered well-maintained room stock, with its banged-up furniture and bare-bones bathroom fixtures. On the plus side? The over-priced vending machine did offer a few packs of well aged, pre-Nabisco-health-kick Oreos.
The Quest for an Explanation
After multiple phone conversations with B.E., Horrible Harry’s hotel manager, I decided to meet with him in person. It would only be fair to provide him the chance to justify the decision to not provide any (more reasonable) alternative accommodation options before sending a guest to the Down Hill Motor Lodge.
Despite the fact that B.E. is a long-time resident of Las Vegas, comes from a family with a long history in Nevada hospitality, and is an experienced hotelier, I found his answers to the following questions shocking, both professionally and personally.
Have you ever spent a night at the Down Hill Motor Lodge? Negative.
Have you ever visited said property? Negative.
Do you think that it might be wise to have, at minimum, a walk-through of a property that is less than four miles from your own to see if it meets or exceeds the standards of what you professionally understand to be adequate accommodation?
It looked OK on the Internet.
His response nearly floored me. Just ask those weasels on Chris Hansen’s “To Catch a Predator” — many things look better on the Internet than they do in person.
A Final Thought
To the Jerry Springer-esque guests who were my neighbors at the Down Hill Motor Lodge, here is my final thought. When Horrible Harry’s entered into an agreement with Allegiant Airlines as an authorized packager of pre-paid flight and lodging bundles, I believe that it entered a covenant to provide a reasonable place for me to sleep on the evenings reserved.
The core question that I have attempted to address with this recollection is whether a casino hotel should go beyond the requisites of the letter of the law (i.e., providing shelter to a reasonable, but not necessarily average, customer’s perception of adequacy) when fulfilling their end of an agreement? Is there an “obligation beyond regulation” as providers of hospitality? As presented, there are codified and culturally concurred rules of hospitality. By not practicing an obligation to hospitality beyond the hotel management’s interpretation of duty, it is my conviction that Horrible Harry’s, via its employee representation, violated the fundamental philosophical rules of hospitality.
Paster is a faculty member at the University of Southern Mississippi College of Business and owns and operates Yarborough Planning LLC, an independent consulting firm. He has 10 years of hospitality and gaming experience. Paster can be reached at (702) 813-5062 or davidpaster1@yahoo.com.
Comments
Post new comment