While most of the focus has been related to airlines, the Crowdstrike IT outage and issues have also crippled hotel operations. In speaking with a few hotel managers around the country, they are unable to do everything from taking payments to making room keys.
With the initial outage occurring early this morning, airlines were seeing the brunt of the impacts. Now, with the airlines mostly back up and running, though with significant delays, new issues are emerging.
If you make it to your destination there is a decent chance that you’ll have difficulties checking into your hotel. I spoke with a couple of hotel general managers from Hilton and Marriott properties and they described chaotic scenes at their properties and others in the area. With payments unable to be processed, one property was photocopying credit cards in order to check out guests.
At a Washington D.C. area hotel, security was having to escort guests to their rooms and unlock them each time they needed access as the property was unable to make room keys.
Unlike the airlines, which are centrally managed, most hotels are independently owned and operated even though they are marketed as a single brand. This is causing issues as the properties need to individually update their computers to resolve the problem. With the systems displaying the “blue screen of death” it requires a hard reset and makes it impossible to push out a new update, or back out the old update across the major brands.
With the siloed nature of the hotel operators, disruptions related to the Crowdstrike outage may affect hotel operations throughout the weekend. As frustrating as it is for guests, it is even more frustrating for employees of the affected hotels. The frontline workers didn’t cause the outage but are having to deal with the downstream impacts and many unhappy customers.
Summary
The Crowdstrike outage has affected more than just airlines across the travel landscape. Hotel operators are struggling to keep the doors open and properties functioning as a result of their systems being down, often reverting to old school methods of payment processing and checking guests in manually.
The impacts of this outage are expected to last through the weekend as operators scramble to get back 100% of their IT functionality. This is especially true for properties with cloud-based management systems that can’t even make room keys in some cases. I’m curious to hear any other tales from the field and whether you’ve run into problems at hotels due to the outage.
Two hotels I’ve been at today in Denver were unable to make room keys and process payments. Both are escorting guests to their rooms.
I’m hearing from folks at Marriott that they’re targeting Sunday to have everything resolved. Their IT team is backed up with tickets. Gonna be a rough weekend.
Staying at a Hilton in Bluffton Sc the staff has to unlock the rooms for you. The staff has been great and brought in more help during the peak times that guests are checking in then going to dinner. They are doing the best they can to keep everyone happy at the Hampton Inn & suites. I’m a smoker and they told me they don’t care how many times I need to be let into my room they are here to help.
Gotta love that small-town, southern hospitality!
I am a General Manager at a Marriott hotel in South Dakota and this outage is ridiculous. I have been up around the clock helping my staff maneuver checking guests in and answering the complaints. People do not understand this is not the hotels or staffs fault, but yet are demanding some type of compensation are being very rude.
Really appreciate all of the hardworking hotel staff that are trying to keep things running during the outage. It will be interesting to see what sort of compensation is given out once the dust settles but there’s no reason to be rude to the staff that are doing everything possible to help. The hotel side of the story hasn’t been widely publicised but hopefully more people are realizing the severity of the issue.
I was charged for a reservation I cancelled four days ahead of time, but could not be refunded my money. I feel I should have a check mailed to me because that money was needed and I am going without money that never should have been taken from me. No one is talking about how our refunds are sitting in your accounts collecting interest until this is resolved…a pretty good motive if you ask me.
At a Hilton property in downtown Chicago, we were turned away and had to search for a room elsewhere. Took an hour to find a hotel that would take us in. Felt like Mary and Joseph.
I’m impressed that you were able to find one based on what I’m hearing.
Fairfield Inn Los Alamitos – great hotel, staff is really calm, they had an emergency binder which allows guest to use room keys.
Staff was very organized and actually knew what they were doing. The General Manager definitely knows what they are doing.
Not only that, a notice that mentions due to the global outage they will be charging cards as soon as the issues is resolved.
New hotel, great service, and very calm staff in time of crisis.
Glad to hear! Some hotels are definitely handling this better than others. While they can’t control the systems, a well equipped and organized staff is a gamechanger in times like this!
I agree with:
Fairfield Inn Los Alamitos – great hotel, staff is really calm, they had an emergency binder which allows guest to use room keys.
Staff was very organized and actually knew what they were doing. The General Manager definitely knows what they are doing.
Not only that, a notice that mentions due to the global outage they will be charging cards as soon as the issues is resolved.
New hotel, great service, and very calm staff in time of crisis.
I was charged for a reservation I cancelled four days ahead of time, but could not be refunded my money. I feel I should have a check mailed to me because that money was needed and I am going without money that never should have been taken from me. No one is talking about how our refunds are sitting in your accounts collecting interest until this is resolved…a pretty good motive if you ask me.