A domestic violence survivor has revealed she was subjected to one of the most “traumatic nights” of her life after Travelodge reception staff handed her abuser a key to her hotel room. The woman, who has not been named, told the BBC she was staying at a Travelodge in London in October last year when she was attacked in her room. Her attacker was reportedly given access to her room by reception staff.
Incident Details
The woman said of her abuser: “He walked into the hotel and told the receptionist that his girlfriend was upstairs having a seizure. He asked what room I was in and what floor I was staying on.” Staff handed him a key and directed him to her room, she added. Once inside, he physically attacked her and tried to grab her phone.
She managed to convince him to leave, but he returned and became more aggressive. “Not long afterwards, I heard him knocking at the door. He was banging, shouting. He was just getting more and more aggressive,” she said. “I was terrified. I was hoping that he was going to stop, but instead, he kicked the hotel room door completely off the hinges.”
Aftermath and Response
The woman said she went downstairs “shaking” and “begging for help”. She added: “I think the receptionist just panicked. She didn’t call the police. She didn’t check if I needed any medical attention. She didn’t ask if there were any family members I could call, anyone that I needed. She just offered me a room, another room in the hotel.”
Responding to the woman’s reports, a Travelodge spokesperson said: “We are deeply sorry for the significant distress experienced by the customer and we apologise for the way the incident has been handled. Customer safety and security is – and remains – a priority for us. Any case of an unauthorised person entering a guest’s room is a significant cause for concern and we want to be clear that this should not have happened. Our room access security policies at the time were not correctly followed, which is not acceptable. Earlier this year, we made changes to strengthen our room access security policy and incident escalation procedures, supported by training for all of our customer-facing colleagues.”
Policy Changes and Criticism
The Press Association understands the individual provided the guest’s full name and room number at reception. Travelodge chief executive Jo Boydell previously said immediate changes were made to its room access security policy after Smith was sentenced for the 2022 attack. But Freddie van Mierlo, MP for Thame, Oxfordshire, where the chain’s head office is based, said changes have not gone far enough and called on Ms Boydell to step down.
He told BBC Breakfast that Travelodge cannot thrive if it cannot “get to grips with the most basic of responsibilities”, adding it needs to make “wholesale deep changes” to how it operates. Mr van Mierlo said: “If a company is failing in its most basic duty to look after the safety of its guests, and we’ve heard the most horrific cases come forward, undermining the trust in the hotel industry, we’ve seen women, people feeling unable to stay in a hotel into the future, I think that does require accountability.” He added: “I don’t think the changes that have taken place to date have been sufficient, that’s evident, and that’s why I think there needs to be a change at the top, because, ultimately, culture and safety needs to come from the very top of the company.”
In line with the changes, explicit permission is now required from guests before additional or replacement keys are issued for their room. It builds on Travelodge’s existing policy to never confirm to a third party that a guest is staying at one of its hotels.
