How to Handle Walk In Guest or Guest Without  Reservation in hotels

In General, a Hotel is obligated to accommodate guests. Legitimate reason for refusing to accommodate a guest may include lack of room availability, or the potential guest's disorderly conduct or unwillingness to pay for accommodations or services.

Who is a Walkin Guest ? A Guest who arrives at a hotel without a reservation is called as 'Walk in'.

The Classic nightmare for any traveller who travel for miles and miles who then walk-in to  the hotels and find that the hotel is fully occupied. Hotels have no obligations to accommodate guests who arrive  without reservation when no rooms are available for the night.

When the hotel cannot accommodated a walk-in guest, the front office agent can make the situation a little easy for the guest by suggesting and providing directions to alternative hotels nearby.

The front office staff can even call other similar hotels and help the guest to make reservation.

If there seems to be no alternative to turning away the guest, a manager not a front desk agent, should explain the matter in a private office.

Registering one guest in view of another who cannot be accommodated can be extremely awkward and embarrassing.

Following steps to be clarified before accepting a Walk-in Reservation:

1. If the guest Presents a confirmation letter, verify the date and the name of the hotel; the guest may have arrived on a different date ir at the wrong hotel.

2. Check with the guest if the reservation was made by another person, it is possible that the reservation agent might have entered the reservation under the booker / caller name ! 

3. Re verify the reservation by searching the hotel software by last name, first name, reservation number, partial name search, mobile number, Booker name, company, travel agent,  etc. If the guest had booked from the travel agent ask the guest to call up the travel agent and get more details of the booking.

4. Ask the guest to reconfirm the arrival date and departure date again, the guest may be arriving on a different date or it is possible that this guest was a no-show for the previos night.

5. If all of the above checks and given negative result then after checking the availability of rooms in the hotel the front desk agent can create a new reservation. When the reservation is created for walk-in guest the source segment of the reservation should be tagged as 'Walk-In'.

6. It is also a good practice to collect a advance deposit for the complete room rental and approximate incidental charges from a Walk-in guest.