Police have opened a murder inquiry after the servant of a Saudi prince was found beaten to death at London’s five-star Landmark Hotel.
Have you ever known a guest to die in your hotel - either naturally or under suspiciouos circumstances? If so, what did you do about it?
Although I do not work within a hotel - I am unfortunate to have experienced two very close friends die in hotel rooms (not at the same time). I know the circumstances of both and both sadly took their own lives, I have often wondered how a hotel copes in these situations and especially as it must often be the housekeeping staff that are first in the room to discover the body.........out of curiosity I'd be interested to learn more of what happens next?
I was GM at a hotel abroad where one of our long term guests died. It was by natural causes and happened during the night. An ambulance was called followed by the police. Between these two services they took care of all the paperwork and even offered to get an undertaker to organise the repatriation of the body. As GM it was my responsibilty to telephone the family in Ireland and give them the sad news.
Unfortunately I have had to deal with four deaths to date. They don't get any easier to deal with.
As long as one informs the authorities in the first instance and let them deal with it, there can be no problems (if it is a natural death).
Thanks for your comment, SBG. That call to Ireland must have been a hard one to make - and of course a hard one for the family to receive.
SBG natural deaths I assume must be easier (alhough all deaths are very distressful whatever the circumstance) but what if it's a suspicious death are you expected to have to keep the body where it is whilst investigations take place - sorry if this is morbid I am just curious?
In our industry we have to deal with most things during the course of our careers. An "in house" death must rank as one of the most unpleasant ones me come across.
It is not up to us (hotel manager) to decide whether a death is natural or suspicious (though we are educated enough to know that if chefs missing kitchen knife is protruding from between the unfortunate guests shoulders, it would look slightly suspicious).
It is for the police/coroner to decide. And yes, if it is suspicious, the body stays in place until all the forensics etc have been done. This is not so bad if the guest dies in their room, but does cause problems when in a public area of the hotel.
I certainly hope most of you out there do not have to experience this sort of situation.
I always found it a bit of a giggle. My old ship used to resemble God's waiting room on occasion, and we'd lose the odd one or two along the way. It was always an opportunity to send the new waiting staff down to the stores to offer the guy in the wheel chair, sitting in the walk-in, a plate of sarnies.
Ah, the good old days...
Gosh, what a dirty, lowdown trick! Reminds me of that movie, Weekend at Bernie's ...
Mark: Gosh, what a dirty, lowdown trick! Reminds me of that movie, Weekend at Bernie's ...
that's one of the funniest films ever.........high on my list - poor old Bernie
Hello Mark
I've yet to come across any hotel that actually has a written procedure - I guess it's one of those occurences that we never think about - until it happens, of course.
My own experience was as a Night Manager in a 4-star deluxe hotel and I had checked in a pre-booked Japanese guest without incident. I returned for duty the following evening to be told that the guest had committed suicide in the early hours. Housekeeping had noticed the DND on the door, waited until after 11:00am check-out time before knocking, received no answer and had called the Duty Manager. (It was policy for the Duty Manager and the Housekeeper to enter a locked room).
I won't go into the details but, in terms of "procedure", upon discovery of the body, nothing was touched, Duty Manager & Housekeeper exited, the bedroom door was double-locked and the Police were called. This was a clear case of suicide and so the Police arranged for forensics to be present and the body was removed later that afternoon discreetly via the rear staff entrance.
However, the story doesn't end there. It being a Japanese-owned hotel, involving a Japanese guest, there were proprieties to be observed and it's common for relatives of the deceased to want to see where the death occurred. The room was put out-of-service, fully redecorated and refurbished so that the wife and children were able to take some comfort by the fact that it was a clean, fresh and a "good place to die"
Kind regards
Gavin M Smith
Thanks Gavin, and welcome to Table Talk. Your interesting comment raises another fascinating area - how to deal with the divergent cultures of the guests that stay at one's hotel. This isnl;t just about having noodle soup on the breakfast menu, and it's not just about having multilingual staff in place - though the latter is clearly very important. It's about knowing how to behave in front of people from different cultures. Clearly, it was important for the Japanese owners you mentioned that proprieties were duly observed. It's so easy to cause offence unwittingly by being unaware of how people from other parts of the world act and interact.