Hotel Salak clarifies

Hotel Salak clarifies

We would like to respond to Mr. Geoffrey Beere's letter
published in this paper on 29 Aug. 2002.

Beere, an Australian passport holder with No. E 7544966,
checked into our hotel on July, 20, 2002. After finishing his
lunch on that day, he claimed that one of his bags was missing.

We tried to assist him to find the missing bag through various
means. We contacted the police; we helped him to search the hotel
area and even some cars and buses that were parked in the parking
area. We also allowed him to replay our CCTV videos as he
requested, although normally nobody is allowed to see these
videos except the security personnel.

The two weeks Beere stayed he refused to pay a security
deposit citing several reasons including that he had lost his
credit card. We tried to charge him without success until Aug. 3,
2002 when we had to ask him to leave as he had not paid the hotel
and service bills for two weeks. Finally, he paid all bills by
credit card, which he previously claimed to have lost.

From the above two cases it is clear that he mixed up the two
stories of the lost bag and not paying the hotel and service
bills.

A hotel is a public area, which can be accessed by anyone. In
that respect the hotel never asks visitors or guests to show
their bags. The management cannot be held responsible for the
loss of someone's belongings if kept in a public area. The
customers will be asked to keep only their less valuable items in
deposit boxes or where there is a baggage keeper in charge.
However the baggage keeper would not be responsible if there were
any items missing inside the bags since the keeper never checks
what is inside the bags.

It is also common for individual travelers who check into a
hotel, to be asked to pay a security deposit in advance. This
procedure is intended to protect the hotel from guests who do not
pay their bills.

We hope this explanation will give the readers a clear picture
of this case.

AGUNG D. WALUJO, Manager, Hotel Salak, Bogor