How hotels protect guests’ privacy and security

The right to privacy is a personality right that natural persons enjoy in accordance with the law to protect, disclose and utilize personal information that they do not want to disclose. As a right to privacy, certain elements must be met: (1) Confidentiality, the rights holder’s personal information is not known to the public and is not disclosed; (2) Confidentiality, refers to a series of actions taken by the rights holder to prevent privacy leaks ,measure. (3) Spirituality means that personal information as privacy is intangible and belongs to spiritual personal elements; whether the right holder’s personal information is disclosed or not will have a greater impact on the spirit and emotions. It can be seen that the right to privacy is personal, non-transferable, and inseparable from the spirit and emotions of the right holder. The result of the damage is a mental state of mental pain.

Since the hotel provides daily services, it is bound to involve guests’ personal privacy issues. For example, by providing guest room service, the waiter can learn about the guest’s basic daily life: when to get up, and what to do after getting up. What do you usually do - take a bath or do some exercise? What brands of clothes do the guests like to wear, what brands of daily necessities do they use, what are their hobbies, etc. The hotel's careful observation and understanding of the guests can meet the hotel's need to provide personalized services to the guests. However, due to the hotel's improper grasp of this, more and more guests realize that their personal rights and interests will be infringed at any time, which seriously It affects guests' activities in the hotel and also makes guests increasingly dissatisfied with the hotel. We often see that some waiters give keys to a third party without the guest's consent; waiters directly use the key to open the door and enter the guest's room without the guest's consent, and so on. Although some hotels have made it clear that the guest room belongs to the guest from the moment the hotel hands the key to the guest, and anyone entering the guest room must obtain the guest's consent; regardless of whether the room is vacant, the waiter must enter the guest room when Everyone must knock on the door; Only Chambermaid canentry the room alone. (Only the housekeeper can enter the room alone) and other regulations. However, from the manager to the waiter, how much do they know about the connotation of these regulations? Otherwise, how could they do it? Are there so many problems? It can be seen that there is still a certain deviation in the hotel's understanding of guests' privacy rights.

1. The main reasons for the proliferation of guest privacy rights

1. Due to the needs of hotel management

On the one hand, some hotels promote personalized To provide services based on the different characteristics of guests, we must use all means to understand the guest's guest history information (including general information, personalized information, consumption characteristic information and guest evaluation information, etc.) in order to provide guests with value-for-money services. Attract guests. The hotel obtains regular guest information through numerous forms (booking forms, accommodation registration forms, guest submissions, etc.). At the same time, the hotel also sets up a guest relations director to communicate with guests to learn as much as possible about their real needs. The hotel also Through handling complaints, we can further understand customers. In addition, we also allow waiters who have direct contact with guests to carefully observe and collect all aspects of guests' information through the service process to form guest history files, including guests' photos, names, nicknames, etc.

On the other hand, some hotels habitually violate personal privacy rights protected by the Constitution to achieve the purpose of improving economic efficiency. For example, some hotels use a large number of instruments, including television cameras, to monitor guests in all public areas. Guests' email messages and other communications are also routinely monitored, causing guest dissatisfaction.

2. The curiosity of employees

Most hotel employees are between the ages of 18-25. This age is the most curious period, and they are often interested in everything. You are interested in people or things you have never seen before, and you can easily observe the details and even absolute privacy of some guests to enrich and fill the boring work of the hotel. For example, some waiters rush into the guest's room without knocking or touch the items in the guest's box at will.

3. Hotels ignore employee character management

At present, most hotels focus on training employees’ work skills, but often ignore professional ethics training for employees, including managers, causing employees to The customer's disloyalty and irresponsible work attitude, the customer's private information will be told to other unrelated people at will, as a joke after dinner; some even use it to blackmail the customer to obtain money. Some waiters even sell guest information to interested third parties for personal gain, causing harm to guests.

4. Disadvantages brought by high technology

With the continuous development of technological means, a series of identifications can be proved through a person’s voice, fingerprints, DNA, iris or other personal characteristics. New technologies for personal identity make it more difficult to maintain privacy and use anonymity. Increasingly sophisticated technologies allow people to refine large amounts of personal information to create a highly detailed record of their financial status and personal habits and interests, which can easily lead to guests feeling that their personal privacy could be compromised at any time. Century Plaza in Los Angeles has the most exquisite electronic suites. The introduction system automatically identifies guests and opens the door. A miniature camera placed at the entrance of the suite allows guests to see and talk to visitors without opening the door. Some hotels in Guangzhou and Beijing have installed infrared sensors. The waiters do not need to knock on the door, ring the bell or check if there is a "please clean" sign. They only need to sit in the floor studio and look at the infrared sensor display to know which rooms are occupied and which are unoccupied. , and accordingly clean and tidy up or turn down the bed, etc., so that the waiter can serve the guest appropriately in a timely manner without disturbing or affecting the guest's daily life and work, and at the same time without infringing on the guest's privacy.

5. Cultural influence

Chinese people emphasize team spirit and interdependence, and often seek recognition and belonging in groups. At the same time, China has a strong tendency to follow the herd and likes cooperation and mutual cooperation. , and tend to share the burden with many people or avoid responsibilities. For example, in the way of greeting, be careful not to infringe on the guest's privacy. Chinese people are often used to asking each other: "Where are you going?" "What are you going to do?" "Is the meal ready?" etc. An employee of a certain hotel made a mistake during the interview process, causing the female guest to mistakenly believe that the employee said she "went to the park to work." She believed that the employee was insulting her and seriously invading her right to privacy.

Currently, hotel rooms abroad generally do not have doorbells installed outside them, because in upper class society, knocking on the door without contacting visitors in advance does not exist, and the principle of hotel service is that waiters basically do not have contact with guests. , therefore, the doorbell becomes unnecessary. In Chinese hotels, the phenomenon of ringing doorbells is still retained, causing "dark" room service to be "bright" service, seriously affecting guests' rest and privacy. For example, the Hard Rock Hotel replaced the "Do Not Disturb" sign that often hangs outside the room door with a "PRIVACY" sign.

2. The hotel’s measures to protect guests’ privacy

1. Cultivate employees with good character

Director He Tingao of the Character Training Center of the American College of Education put forward “ On the importance of "Character First" training, he believes that employees' good character is the lasting driving force of an enterprise. The so-called good character is a person's intrinsic motivation to do the right thing according to the highest behavioral standards on any occasion. Therefore, the hotel should establish a hotel culture based on character, focus on learning a character (including temperance, respect, prudence, true love, reliability, loyalty, sincerity, honesty, virtue, contentment, etc.), promptly correct the problems of employees, and conduct operations based on employee character. Performance evaluation. As a hotel, it is more necessary to provide training content and training plans with character education as the core, and at the same time strengthen legal awareness education to truly improve employees' awareness of consciously protecting guest privacy.

2. Provide “just the right” personalized service from the customer’s perspective

I remember an example where a European guest went to a high-end bar. When the guest finished his drink When drinking beer, the waiter asked: "Sir, would you like some more?" The guest said disgustedly: "Who do you think I am? Am I an alcoholic?".

Regardless of whether the guest's behavior is reasonable or not, when the hotel improves personalized service, it should pay attention to the scale of serving guests to avoid arousing guests' resentment and causing dissatisfaction with the hotel.

3. Proper use of high technology

Hotels can use high technology to improve the confidentiality of guest privacy. Hong Kong Dacheng Hotel uses an "infrared sensor" system to detect the frequency of movement of objects in the guest room to determine whether the guest is in the guest room, thereby providing room service information to avoid the waiter from disturbing the guest too much, thereby protecting the guest's privacy. ; At the same time, the hotel's TV system is directly connected to the computer system at the front desk to ensure the accuracy and confidentiality of message delivery. In order to improve the privacy of guests, Japanese love hotels allow guests to understand their bills from the TV in the room. When guests want to leave, they only need to insert their credit cards into the payment machine at the door to pay. These practices allow guests staying in this hotel to Do not meet other guests, ensure guests' confidentiality, and be welcomed by guests.

4. Improve the level of self-service for guests

Hotels can reduce employee intervention in some activities of guests by increasing the level of guest participation in services. For example, some hotels allow guests to deliver the menus they order to the kitchen. After the dishes are prepared, the guests can take them away themselves. The purpose of these practices is to reduce the number of waiters' interruptions to guests by improving their self-service procedures. Some hotels choose to let guests clean up their rooms by themselves; The Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong uses a "dog hole" (a small hole in the wall next to the room door that connects the outside of the door and the room) to allow guests to put away laundry or laundry. Leather shoes that need to be wiped are put into the dog hole. The waiter can take away the clothes or leather shoes through the door in the corridor. After the clothes are washed or the leather shoes are wiped clean, the waiter returns them to the hole and the guests take them out from inside. A hotel in Beijing places a pot of flowers on the corner platform outside the room door. When the guests leave, the flowers are removed. When the guests enter the room, the flowers are placed next to the door to facilitate the provision of undisturbed service to the guests.

5. Strengthen the protection of privacy rights through legislation

At present, there is no clear provision on privacy rights in our country's legislation. In practice, infringement of privacy rights is usually punished in accordance with relevant legal provisions. Adjustment, operability is not strong. Therefore, on the one hand, our country should clearly stipulate the right to privacy through legislation as soon as possible to improve people's legal awareness. On the other hand, hotels should also strengthen the legal awareness of waiters in customer service and improve the privacy rights of guests.

These regulations affect the hotel's operation and management, including customer reservations and registrations in daily operations, loyal customer promotions, market information surveys, and franchise and ancillary services within the hotel. Therefore, when a customer checks in and fills out the check-in card, according to the new privacy law, a space can be added to the registration card that the customer can choose to indicate: If you do not want your personal information to be used for promotions and I use this hotel chain, please check the box.