I suppose that you need to be or have been a hotelier to understand the annoyance and the financial cost of handling these members of the public, we run a great hotel where the customer service is God yet some people will never be happy.

Its a good idea and I am amazed that someone has not thought of it before.

On the practice itself, in the one industry you noted: I can use an annonimous form of “payment” to reserve my accommodations (i.e.: a “gift” charge card, a relative’s credit card, a business credit/charge card, etc.), negating any personal information I provide.

Realistically, how effective would a system such as this be with obvious means to circumvent it? And, more importantly, how prolific is the practice in all business areas and is it REALLY on the rise?

Maybe that’s a way to save this: take Alex’s credit report example all the way. Regulate it, and ensure that after a certain period of time people are “forgiven” by having their name taken off the blacklist.

I’d make an appeal not just to economic efficiency but to a philisophical decision between egalitarianism or individualism. The two are consistent until people begin to take actions distinguishing themselves from each other–then they diverge. I like being judged on the basis of what I do rather than what someone else does.

Finally, with respect to the possibility of abuse: this certainly might be a problem, just as abuse with credit scores is a problem. Smart regulation could cope with this, however, by having options for arbitration and certain customer rights — as with credit scores. In any event, if I were a hotel I wouldn’t be all that interested in a blacklist if I thought it was chock-full of petty and frivolous complaints lodged against customers by my competitors.

On something completely different, I wonder if there have ever been any rowdy wardman park stories… aspiring lawprofs throwing water balloons from the balcony at 3am…

And what if they are vindictively put on the blacklist because they complained too much about lousy hotel service? Can they ever get off? How do they correct such erroneous listings?

If a hotel receives an erroneous bad comment or two on a ratings website, big deal. Other folks will chime in with the correct information. But the blacklists don’t operate in this way. Once you’re on, there appears to be little you can do to get off.

It is true that some hotel customers act really badly and trash hotel rooms and steal things. If they do this, then the hotel should file a criminal complaint. But blacklists strike me as a cure that might be worse than the disease.

At the same time, if customers are trashing hotel rooms, why should we have sympathy for them? Aren’t we just giving them the same incentives to behave (and not steal the towels) that hotels are under?

Cathy (above) has a good point – hotels are subject to public accommodations laws…