What are the wrong things to say and do in a reputational crisis?
This week, budget hotel chain Travelodge gave us some pointers.
Its CEO Jo Boydell is due to meet MPs shortly following the shocking case where staff at its Maidenhead hotel gave a female guest’s room number and key to a man – without conducing any checks – who went into her room while she slept and sexually assaulted her.
It’s an offence for which he’s just been jailed for seven and a half years.
What did Travelodge say?
They’ve apologised, thankfully. But, as widely reported across the media, they also confirmed their staff’s actions were:
“… in line with existing security procedures.”
So, far from acknowledging it as a terrible one-off blunder, giving people’s room keys to strangers is something they’re happy to do at all their hotels?
They even described their actions as “industry standard security procedures”, appearing complacent and amplifying it into an industry-wide problem.
(Yes, they went on to say they’ll review their procedures, but why lead with suggesting it’s normal practice?)
And what did Travelodge do?
They offered the victim a derisory £30 compensation.
I’m sure their CEO will do much better when grilled by the MPs. But what a misguided initial response.
A classic case of a terrible event made worse by the actions and statements that followed.
UPDATE – 16 March 2026: Travelodge have now announced that they’ve made “immediate changes” to their door key policy – presumably as a result of all the bad publicity the case has attracted. Curious choice of word, “immediate”, given the incident happened more than three years ago …
You can see more here on our crisis communications services.
