The warning comes from Paul Greaney KC, who led a review commissioned earlier this year after a woman was sexually assaulted at a Travelodge in Maidenhead, Berkshire, by a man who had been given a key card to her room.
Mr Greaney said the woman was “fundamentally failed by Travelodge as an organisation at every stage” and was “treated by Travelodge in a way that was inappropriate and unfair; indeed, it was disgraceful.”
Ray Reidy, interim chief executive of Travelodge, said: “I apologise unreservedly on behalf of Travelodge to all guests where we have failed.”
Mr Greaney said unauthorised room entries have become so common in the hotel industry that they are now referred to as “room intrusions.”
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The Travelodge hotel in Oxford (Image: Oxford Mail)
He said: “The evidence I have received reveals that room intrusions are not a type of occurrence restricted to Travelodge hotels, but instead are a problem across the hotel sector.”
Mr Greaney said he hoped other hotel bosses would take the review’s findings seriously when considering their own policies and procedures.
Within Travelodge, customer-reported cases of room intrusion have started to reduce significantly since the end of May, following efforts to improve guest safety.
However, guests still reported incidents in nearly one in 10 Travelodge hotels, which equates to around 60 locations.
UK Hospitality has recently issued new guest security guidance for the industry, covering requests for replacement room keys, access for those not named on bookings, and the management of group and corporate reservations.
Kyran Smith was jailed for seven-and-a-half years in February for the assault at the Maidenhead Travelodge in December 2022.
He had falsely told a junior staff member that he was the woman’s boyfriend and was given a key to her room in under three minutes.
The victim emailed Travelodge in January 2023, urging the company to review its security processes, but the complaint did not reach then-chief executive Jo Boydell until more than three years later.
Mr Greaney criticised the handling of the complaint, describing it as “inadequate and downplayed to a substantial extent the seriousness of what had happened.”
Travelodge offered her a reimbursement for her night’s stay, which she “understandably interpreted as an offer of £30.”
The review said Travelodge’s response “fell short of every standard the public would expect of an organisation such as Travelodge. It was simply appalling.”
Mr Reidy said Travelodge has made “significant progress” in the past six months but acknowledged “we still have further to go.”
He said the company is dedicating “significant resources” to overhauling procedures and improving governance.
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