Why do some hotels ask you to leave the key at the reception when you go out to come back later?

9/22/2021 8:18:09 AM

Why do some hotels ask you to leave the key at the reception when you go out to come back later?

In the past (1970’s/80’s), for smaller hotels and pensions:

  • prevention of loss (they were rather ugly and heavy for a reason)
  • prevention of strangers ‘wandering’ around, where the reception is strategically placed near the main/only entry
  • telefon calls: with the then existing older systems where a manual connection was required, one simply told the caller that the guest was away if the key was there.

Hotels then often had a ‘long memory’, so people working there were often trained on what to look out for.

Maids would report to their Matron/Housekeeper and they would report to the receptionist anything that looked odd (the main source of the hotel grapevine that was very fast and often more extensive than strictly necessary).

Often, someone in the hotel knew how to exchange locks (and other general repairs), which would be done if a key was lost under suspicious circumstances. Thus a stolen key would no longer match the original room and become useless for a hotel thief. In the small hotel I worked at during my studies, the owner did this himself keeping track of all the exchanges. There were also spare keys/locks, so it could be quite some time until a stolen key would be used for another room.

So there were good reasons for this policy, which served not only the interest of the hotel but also of the guest (in public statements: the other way around).

6/29/2016 1:12:10 PM

In addition to the existing answers:

In budget hotels, it can save yet another bit of cost as they don’t need to give out multiple keys per room.
This has multiple advantages:

  • The cost of making the extra key
  • The hassle if even 1 of the keys gets lost
  • Because it is 1 key, you can force people to turn of the light when they leave the room (as they need to insert the keycard to make electricity work)
6/29/2016 9:31:53 AM

I have encountered this practice in the past as well. Once I actually talked to them about the reason for it. In that particular hotel, this was encouraged, but not required. They explained that there were two reasons (for that particular hotel):

  1. It’s much easier for them to know when the guests are out, so they can go and clean the room. They have had cases when the maid would knock on the door, receive no answer, and open the door with her own key — just to find the guest still in the room, often in a state rather not expecting anyone to come in (this did include on a few occasions walking on people having sex)

  2. Minimise the risk of the key being lost/stolen. This reduces the cost in the long run – both in term of the keys/locks needing replacing, but also the liability. In that hotel, the keys were quite distinctive, clearly showing the hotel name and the room number on the key. If a key is lost, whoever finds it can just come in to the hotel, go to the room and steal something – and the guests would hold the hotel liable for the stolen property. The sign at the reception actually stated that the hotel would bear no responsibility for guests’ property left in the room unless the key was handed to the reception upon leaving the hotel.

6/28/2016 7:52:24 PM

Some hotels do like the keys to be left at the premises. That is just the way it is.

It is more work for them, to collect the keys and hand them back whenever you want to go to your room.
But they think it is worth it.

I have seen this when the keys or the keyfobs were quite expensive and in old fashioned/traditional hotels, where service is still valued.

All hotels have either a spare set of keys or a master key, or likely both.
So no reason not to service the rooms.
But hotel staff have told me that if the guest forgets to hand in the key when leaving, they have to have a new key made, which is a nuisance at least and can be costly in the longer run.

Credit:stackoverflow.com‘

About me

Hello,My name is Aparna Patel,I’m a Travel Blogger and Photographer who travel the world full-time with my hubby.I like to share my travel experience.

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