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CHAPTER 7
Guests and Other Patrons
CONTENTS
A. Chapter Competencies
B. Introduction
C. Who Qualifies as a Guest?
D. Intent of Parties
E. Guests’ Illegal Acts
F. Termination of a Guest-Innkeeper
Relationship
G. Landlord-Tenant Relationship
H. Answers to Case Example
Questions
I. Answers to End-of-Chapter
Questions
Chapter Summary
Hospitality management students learn that the legal duties owed by an innkeeper to guests are different from
those owed to nonguests. A threshold issue in many lawsuits against hotels is whether the plaintiff was a guest
in the legal sense. The outcome of the case may depend on the resolution of that issue.
The easiest way to identify who is a guest is to determine whether he or she has registered for a room on a
temporary basis. By registering, the guest has evidenced an intention to utilize overnight accommodations and
the hotel has evidenced an intention to provide the guest a room.
The definition of a guest has been expanded to include people who mistakenly come to the hotel a day
earlier than the first day of their reservations and utilize baggage check services in the interim; people who are
in the process of checking in or out; and regular overnight patrons who, on a day in question, utilize the hotel
safe although unsure if they will stay in town overnight, but who intend to stay at the hotel if they do decide to
remain. While the definition of “guest” has expanded, an intention by the hotel to provide the guest a room on
a temporary basis is still necessary.
A hotel guest should be distinguished from a tenant, whose use of a room is of a longer duration than a
guest’s. The obligations of an innkeeper to a guest differs from those of a landlord to a tenant.
A. Chapter Competencies
After studying Chapter 7, the student should be able to
1. define “guest” in the context of an inn or a hotel.
2. differentiate between a guest and a nonguest by giving examples.
3. describe the innkeeper-guest relationship.
4. identify when the guest status arises.
5. identify what determines the formulation of intentions of potential guests.
6. describe the role of registration.
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7. discuss the delivery of property as evidence of intent in the innkeeper-guest relationship.
8. discuss the process of termination of guest status.
9. discuss the effect of guest’s illegal acts on the status as a guest.
10. identify at least three factors that lead to the termination of the guest-innkeeper relationship.
11. identify the reasonable time frame in which the guest-innkeeper relationship continues after the
guest has vacated a room.
12. distinguish between a guest and a tenant.
13. identify at least five factors that determine tenant or guest status.
B. Introduction
❊An innkeeper owes certain duties to those who use the hotel’s facilities.
■A hotel owes certain duties to guests but not to others.
■Explain that the legal duties owed by an innkeeper to guests are different from those owed to
nonguests.
■A threshold issue in many lawsuits against hotels is whether the plaintiff was a guest in the legal
sense. The outcome of the case may depend on the resolution of that issue.
C. Who Qualifies as a Guest?
❊Explain that for a person visiting an inn to qualify as a guest, the visit must be for the primary pur-
pose for which an inn operates—rental of rooms suitable for overnight stay.
D. Intent of Parties
❊Explain that the innkeeper-guest relationship is a contractual one.
■The parties exchange the exclusive use of a guest’s room for money.
■Review the elements of contract from Chapter 4.
■An essential element of all contracts is an intention by the parties to enter a contract.
■A transient becomes a guest upon entering a hotel intending to procure overnight accommoda-
tions where the innkeeper has a room available.
■Explain the determination of intent of the parties involved.
■A request for a room or an advance reservation is sufficient to evidence intent on the part of a
would-be patron to become a guest; of course, if the innkeeper indicates a willingness to regis-
ter and provide a room, it is sufficient evidence of intent on the innkeeper’s part to form an
innkeeper-guest relationship.
❊Registration.
■Explain that while registration clearly evidences intent on both the guest’s and innkeeper’s
part to develop an innkeeper-guest relationship, it is not essential for the relationship to exist.
❊Delivery of property.
■Some cases hold that a person who intends to register but has not yet done so becomes a guest
by delivering luggage to a hotel employee.
■The hotel’s intent is evidenced by its acceptance of the suitcase.
•In these situations, the responsibility of the proprietor as innkeeper starts at the moment of
the delivery and acceptance.
■Explain that, when people deliver baggage to the hotel porter and do not intend to become
guests of the hotel, an innkeeper-guest relationship does not exist.
•Even a person who has not yet decided whether to rent a room may, under certain circum-
stances, be considered a guest.
•The key issue is whether that person came to the hotel for the purpose of benefiting from the
various services offered by the hotel to guests.
❊Checking out.
■Explain that the status of guest is not instantaneously terminated upon check-out, but rather
continues for a reasonable period of time while the guest remains on the hotel premises.
76 ■Chapter 7
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E. Guests’ Illegal Acts
❊Explain the effects, if any, concerning the status of a would-be guest who registers at a hotel giv-
ing false information or who is involved in illegal activities.
F. Termination of a Guest-Innkeeper Relationship
❊Explain the factors that terminate the innkeeper-guest relationship.
❊Explain that guests are allowed a reasonable time after vacating the room during which they con-
tinue to qualify as guests. The length of this period (half an hour, one hour, or longer) depends on
the facts of each case.
G. Landlord-Tenant Relationship
❊Explain that the innkeeper’s responsibilities to a tenant differ from those owed to a guest.
■To be a guest, a person must be a transient; that is, his stay at the inn is temporary.
■If the person is staying on a permanent basis, he is a tenant.
■Whether a hotel patron is a tenant or a guest is determined from a number of factors.
•The terms of the contract between the parties.
•The more control and supervision retained by the hotel, the more likely the patron is a guest.
•The shorter the rate interval, the more likely the patron is a guest.
•The longer the occupancy, the greater the suggestion the patron is a tenant.
•Incidental services are offered, as are frequent services.
•Cooking facilities are more frequently associated with a landlord-tenant relationship than
innkeeper-guest.
•Hotel rooms virtually always are furnished; rooms intended as apartments are less likely to be
furnished.
■Explain that none of these factors alone determines the legal relationship; the more the
circumstances resemble a landlord-tenant relationship, the less likely an innkeeper-guest
relationship exists.
H. Answers to Case Example Questions
7-1-1. What one fact in this case, if changed, would have resulted in the plaintiff winning the
lawsuit?
If the plaintiff had been a guest at the hotel, rather than merely a patron at the bar, he would
have won the lawsuit. A hotel, but not a restaurant, owes a legal duty to its guests to refrain
from using insulting words or engaging in insulting conduct.
7-2-1. Assume you are on the jury in this case. Based on the information available, would you
hold that the plaintiff was a guest? Why or why not?
If the student claims that the plaintiff was a trespasser, the basis would be that Howe asked
for a room for four oil men and Langford agreed to provide two rooms for four men,
not two rooms for two men and two women. If the student claims that the plaintiff was a
guest, the basis would be that Langford apparently saw who was in the car and must have
realized that the two rooms were wanted for two young couples. He had to have been look-
ing at the car because he noted that the license plate number written on the registration
was incorrect.
7-3-1. Why do you think the court ruled that plaintiff was a guest?
Although the plaintiff was not registered at the hotel the night that the suitcase was stolen,
she was registered for a two-week stay beginning the following night. The likely reasons the
hotel agreed to keep her suitcase on the night it was stolen were both that she was going to
be a registered guest beginning the next day and that she had been a frequent guest in the
past. These reasons likely were the basis for the court’s decision that the plaintiff was a guest
at the time the jewelry was stolen.
Guests and Other Patrons ■77
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