Bedbugs are a tricky nuisance to control, but addressing
them in the context of a managed travel program might be an even trickier
proposition.
Amid horror stories about travelers waking up in seemingly
clean hotel rooms covered in bites, some buyers reportedly have been mentioning
the topic in discussions with hoteliers. To this point, those discussions have
been introduced "more conversationally than formally," according to
Sean Curley, director of consulting for BCD Travel's Advito unit. Nailing down
anything bedbug-related as a negotiating point would be difficult, he said.
"Bedbugs can go undetected for a few days, so it can be
very difficult to ascertain if the bedbugs were picked up in a hotel, at a
theater or anywhere else where they may be found," Curley said. "Most
clients were inclined to think that the actual source could be unclear, and any
hotel eradication plan would only be as good as the next guest that walked in
the front door."
Mauricio Molina, director of Carlson Wagonlit Travel's Hotel
Solutions, said he hasn't seen bedbugs broached in negotiations at all.
Further adding to the murkiness is the fact that people physically
react to bedbugs in different ways, said University of Nevada, Las Vegas hotel
management department chair Christian Hardigree in a recent webcast on the
subject. Some people might not have a reaction until days after being bitten,
while others never have a reaction.
From a legal stance, hotels can face a variety of damages if
travelers are able to prove their bedbugs directly resulted from their hotel
stay. At the very least, hotels might have to pay compensatory damages,
including medical bills, lost wages and compensation for mental anguish, according
to Hardigree. If a hotel acted recklessly—putting a guest in a room with a
known infestation because the rest of the hotel was sold out, for example, or
having a staff member lie to a guest about a known infestation—it could face
punitive damages as well.
"That's the same as assault and battery,"
Hardigree said.
So far, that liability does not appear to have spread to
companies. Curley knew of no cases in which business travelers contracted bedbugs
and required compensation for mitigation efforts directly from their employers.
Travelers and hoteliers alike have no shortage of tools to
monitor bedbug infestations. Besides the Bed Bug Registry, which has aggregated
infestation reports since 2006, travelers also can use the iPhone Bed Bug Alert
app to make location-based searches of nearby infestations. Additionally,
several available apps help travelers identify bedbugs and react to a suspected
infestation accordingly. Hotels, meanwhile, are seeing an emergence of gizmos
for their own vigilance, such as a business-card-sized monitoring device
introduced earlier this month at the National Hardware Show that claims to
attract and trap bedbugs.