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The well-known Hilton Hotels attract guests of all ethnicities and cultures due to their 4-star rating, rave reviews, amenities, and luxury ambiance. These qualities also attracted Heather M. Bassett. After carefully researching her many Hotel options in the area, Heather decided this Hotel was where her and 7-year old daughter would stay, as they visited Disneyland for her daughter’s first time. To their dismay, Heather’s decision wasn’t filled with “fond memories” as Kathrine S. (Hilton Hotel’s Corporate Guest Relations Specialist) states:
“We strive to make sure that each guest has an excellent stay with fond memories”, but rather, Heather and her daughter’s stay resulted in memories of inconveniences and great stresses; as they experienced unethical practices from the Hotel staff.
Heather explains her story: Heather’s decision to stay at the Hilton Hotel – Anaheim was influenced by a couple amenities; such as the water playground area for her daughter, a refrigerator in the room, and the most important factor, a restaurant in the Hotel which offered vegetarian food. As a vegetarian and borderline vegan, Heather completed her due diligence as traveling requires extra research on menu options and hours of food preparation for the days not eating out. On the day of travel, she carried two small ice chests filled with pre-made food, including: smoothies, non-dairy yogurt, beans, and vegetable dishes, which quickly went into the room refrigerator, upon their arrival. Heather planned their first night to dine at The Mix, and already knew the menu options they would order. After driving 9 hours, restless, and hungry, Heather and her daughter arrived at the Mix around 7 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. eagerly anticipating the food options. To their utter disbelief, the waitress expressed, the Hotel couldn’t accommodate their vegetarian requests because the “chief wasn’t there,” apologized, and said “there was nothing they could do.” Heather immediately spoke with one of the Hotel Managers, but he too just apologized and assisted them with looking at a map of the other restaurants in the area.
The next morning Heather and her daughter awoke in total excitement, dressed, and went to the refrigerator to find there was no cooling coming from the inside, at all. The refrigerator didn’t work and all their food for the next two days, was ruined. Heather contacted Hilton customer service late that night, but all that was offered was $100 off the bill.
Vegetarian Challenges
If you are not a vegetarian/border line vegan one cannot possibly imagine how these issues impacts someone’s life; especially on vacation. You see, Heather and her daughter refrain from eating sugars, processed foods, gluten, dairy, meat, and eggs so without their prepared food, their health was affected, they experienced uncomfortable symptoms, and were incredibly inconvenienced with making trips to the grocery store, but couldn’t prepare meals, or put food in the refrigerator because the Hotel didn’t offer to come fix or replace it.
Over a year later, November 2019, Heather emailed her thorough complaint to two of Hilton Hotel customer service representatives, CEO – Christopher Nassetta and finally mailed a certified letter to Jonathan Witter – Chief Customer Officer, requesting small compensation and the Hotel policies for vegetarian options being made available to the guests. The only thing Heather received were apologies from 3 representatives and this statement from Executive Ambassador Colleen Rosales who wrote;
“In the future should you have a problem at a hotel please bring your concerns to the management team so that they can investigate it and make it right while you are the hotel.”
And customer service representative Marielle O who stated:
“Anything below our Brand Standards is immediately addressed. We regret to inform you we are only able to go back as far as 12 months to address any issues. We sincerely apologize.”
Clearly, the actions communicated from these representatives were not executed at the time of Heather’s stay, complaint instructions were not provided to Heather, and most importantly, the Hotel is now neglecting the main issue of discrimination against a vegetarian’s lifestyle.
Hilton Hotel may be one of the largest brands in the World but fails greatly in Hotel guest accommodation.
