The delinquency in hotels is well known both to the professionals of the sector as
well as to the clients. The specificity of hotel accommodation as an area of
“hospitality” and discretion, providing distinctive tranquility and security prevents
disclosure of delinquency cases that occur in them. Despite the discretion which the
handling of these cases entails, their existence is undeniable.
This survey, conducted for the first time in Greece, aims at exploring the extent and
forms of delinquency in the Greek hotel industry, by recording and classifying
phenomena of delinquent behavior and how hotel managers are dealing with them.
The survey was conducted on the basis of a structured questionnaire that was
distributed to directors and managers of hotel businesses. Due to the expected
reserves to make public these incidents, the sample was a “convenience sample” and
was combined with personal interviews with hotel directors. The questions posed
were related to the manifestation of delinquency cases, their type, the way of
confronting them, the personnel responsible for their management, the existence or
not of relative staff training, the employment of security officers, the involvement or
not of the police, the communicative handling of the cases, etc.
The survey shows that hotel delinquency includes a wide range of actors both within
and outside the hotel circuit. It also reveals the lack of security departments charged
with preventing and managing these cases. In addition, the study demonstrates the
necessity of carrying more targeted research by region and category of hotel
accommodation in order to draw more valid conclusions on preventing and reducing
offending behavior in hotels.