Travelodge updates key policy after Maidenhead hotel assault
Changes follow incident where a guest was attacked
Travelodge has revised its room key policy following a serious sexual assault at its Maidenhead hotel in December 2022.
Kyran Smith has been jailed for seven and a half years after staff provided him with a key card to the victim's room following deceitful claims.
Under the updated policy, staff are now required to obtain explicit permission from the person staying in the room before issuing additional or replacement keys.
Travelodge Chief Executive Jo Boydell has conveyed her apology for the distress caused to the victim.
Boydell said: “I am deeply sorry for the significant distress experienced by the victim. We have apologised to her for the way this has been handled and I would welcome the opportunity to meet with her to personally apologise and discuss what happened, and to hear her thoughts on how we can improve our processes, if she would like to.
We have made some immediate changes to our room access security policy following an initial internal review. This ensures that any additional or replacement room keys are only issued with explicit permission from the person (or people) staying in the room and has already been rolled out to all of our hotels, supported by training for our 12,000 customer facing colleagues.
We have also commissioned an independent review of our room security measures to learn from this and further strengthen our procedures. The safety and security of our customers and colleagues is extremely important to us, and we want them to be safe, and feel safe, in our hotels.
I am looking forward to meeting with MPs and ministers today, including Matt Bishop MP, Jen Craft MP and Jess Phillips MP, Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, to listen to their concerns and lay out the steps we’re taking to further strengthen our room security measures for customers in our hotels.”