This is a true story of the unfortunate time I was harassed by a hotel manager while traveling solo. Which just makes it all that much worse.
This happened in Portugal a couple years ago but for privacy reasons I’m not going to name the hotel or any of the people who were involved. But I hope my story can shed a bit of light to the fact that even in countries that are deemed safe, solo female travelers can bump into unexpected issues.
I also share how I dealt with the situation afterwards in case it’s useful for someone else. This time the story had a happy ending, as you can probably guess from the headline. But it hasn’t always been that way when I’ve been attacked or harassed.
Thankfully something like this does not occur often. I just got extremely unlucky. But as female solo travelers, we can’t afford to ignore the fact that the world still doesn’t quite know how to treat us appropriately.
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I Was Harassed by a Hotel Manager So I Got Him Fired
To set the scene, I traveled to Portugal with my family. They stayed there for a week, and when they left I stayed traveling solo for another week. On the first day there we were just strolling around and eventually got hungry.
We came across a hotel that had a tasty looking menu, so we went in. We were greeted by the Front Office Manager, who led us to the backyard terrace. He served us throughout our lunch, and he was absolutely brilliant. It was clear he loved what he did and he was very competent and accommodating. If I had known that he was about to make me feel extremely unsafe…
I used the ladies’ before we moved on and was impressed by the hotel’s style. This caught my attention because I hadn’t yet booked accommodation for the second week. I mentioned my interest in the hotel to the Manager when we were leaving.
He then gave me his email and suggested I book a room through him, and he would give me a 10% discount. Lovely!
Booking a room gone wrong
When we got back to the hotel in the evening, I tried to book a room through the hotel’s website. For some reason it wouldn’t accept my company’s information, so I emailed the Manager to ask for help with the booking.
He replied by saying that he had booked a room for me, and that he had given me an even bigger discount. Brilliant! Or so I thought…
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The very next day I received a Whatsapp(!) message from a strange number. I first googled the country code, which told me that the number was Portuguese. When I opened the message I quickly realised it was from the Manager. This freaked me out immediately because where did he get my number??
My phone number is not available on my
- websites
- social media
- LinkedIn, etc.
He could not have gotten my number from anywhere else, except by searching for it from the hotel’s booking system. Which is illegal. The first message was decent enough: informing us of a brunch at the hotel the next day. What followed was not decent.
The problems began…
I replied politely to the first message and expected him to leave it there. He must’ve known he shouldn’t have texted me, he had been so professional before!
But no; from there onwards the texting continued non-stop. Every time I took longer and longer to reply and I kept the replies to 1-2 words. The messages quickly turned to complimenting my looks, and at first I politely thanked him, because it was just a compliment.
Then he asked me what wine I liked. As a Finn I proudly answered:
“Anything goes as long as it’s alcohol!”
That evening, when we returned to our hotel, I was just about to hit the shower when my phone rang. It was him. He called me to say that he was downstairs in the hotel lobby with a delivery for me…
At this point I didn’t yet connect the dots about the fact that I was harrassed, but I had this very uneasy feeling about it all. How did he know what hotel we were in?
I hopped downstairs and there he was still in his work clothes, clearly on a break. He told me he had first tried to get our room number from the reception staff… WTF!? Two things:
- Imagine if he had knocked on our door just when I’m coming out of the shower
- As a manager at a hotel himself he should know that a receptionist should never reveal a room number to anyone other than those who have booked the room!
I took the red wine from him, thanked him for the lovely gesture and went back upstairs equipped with a bright red face.
The moment I realised I was harrassed
Upstairs me and mum had a little laugh about the man going to all that trouble for me. We laughed because at this point my mum had no idea that he had been texting me the whole time. I didn’t see any reason to mention it to her. Why?
Because I felt really uncomfortable and embarrassed! Which doesn’t make sense because I knew I hadn’t done anything to be embarrassed about. Those who have been harassed or sexually abused know what I mean, though. That feeling of embarrassment at the bottom of your stomach when one’s personal space in invaded without any invitation… It’s inexplicable and awful.
After the wine bottle delivery his messages started to get noticeably slimy. Basically he would describe things he wanted to do to me. It was extra disgusting because he had been such a professional, a decent person… Until he wasn’t. At this point there was no question about it: I was harassed.
I told him to keep the messages at a guest-employee level because I was going to stay at the hotel, and the texts made me uncomfortable. He agreed and apologised. And then couple hours later sent another suggestive message, which I ignored.
For the next days I had to remind him a couple times to either keep the texting polite or stop texting me. I was not vague about what I thought about it all, but he completely ignored the fact that I was uncomfortable.
The diversion attempt
When my family flew home, I went to another city for a couple days to see a friend. Before heading off I dropped my suitcase to the other hotel. The Manager’s hotel. It was really awkward even though he was polite and professional face-to-face. A very different story in my phone.
While away in another city I went on a Tinder date. I decided to use this as an opportunity to further emphasise that I wasn’t interested in the Manager. At this point he was following me on Instagram (which back then was still public). When I was waiting for my date to pick me up, I got another disgusting text from him. I replied “Do not text me again”.
For those wondering why I didn’t just block him since clearly I was harassed, I had 2 reasons:
- I didn’t want to seem full-on rude since I was going to stay at his hotel
- He was digging a grave for himself and I wanted all the evidence so I could later build a good case against him.
So, my date took me for lunch to a rustic, lovely restaurant outside of the city. While he was ladling stew onto my plate I sneaked a photo of the pot full of delicious food. It was clearly discernible from the photo that there was a man sitting opposite me.
It seemed to do the trick because after publishing the photo I received no texts from the Manager! If only that had been the end of it…
Arriving to the horror hotel
When heading back to the original city, I prayed the whole way that the Manager wouldn’t be working that day. And I got my wish! He wasn’t there when I went to check in. The guy at the reception mentioned to me “You got a very interesting room”, which confused me.
It was an artsy hotel, and each room’s décor was based on a famous painter or a piece of art. I expected a regular size room, since that was what I had booked. But the room that the receptionist led me to was smaller than a regular walk-in closet… In confusion I bid him good day and he left.
There was no room for anything else but the bed. No room to even open my suitcase. But that wasn’t the biggest problem! That was the wall-sized “piece of art” behind the bed.
It was a self portrait of Frida Kahlo with a spiky thorn wrapped around her neck and a dead bird hanging from the thorn. Her neck is bleeding and there was a black cat peeking from behind her shoulder. The original piece is quite light in terms of colours and lighting.
But the one covering my room’s wall was a dark and threatening version of it. I wasn’t familiar with this piece. And with such a threatening painting added to the fact that I suspected the Manager wasn’t happy with me, I immediately interpreted the situation as a threat. It felt as if he wanted to ‘showcase his authority’ over me.
This is and always will be the biggest mistake anyone could ever make with me!
From fear to pure rage
It quickly dawned on me that I had been given a different room than what I originally booked, and that the point was to send a message to me. The fear I had initially felt turned into hot rage within seconds. I was harassed and it had gone too far!
Clenching my teeth and with twisting fists I literally stormed back into the lobby. It was clear that my face left no questions lingering because the poor boy at the reception looked truly scared when I approached.
I tried to keep my voice as calm as possible because I knew he had done nothing wrong. He also didn’t know anything about the drama between me and his manager. So I explained to him that I had booked a room with his manager, and the room that had been booked was not this one.
“This room is not what I’m paying for, and I do not give a fuck how full the hotel is, I will get another room RIGHT NOW.”
Fuck politeness at that point! That’s what these harassing men rely on; that we will stay quiet and polite. I do not play by their rules!
The poor boy apologised profusely with wide puppy eyes and said that he would have to call his manager to check what they can do. He asked if I could wait for 15 minutes. I said yes and went for a walk.
I would never make a good liar because my face always shows exactly what I’m feeling. This became evident on the walk because people were literally running and jumping out of my way on a narrow pavement. I must’ve looked ready to murder… which makes sense because that’s how I felt.
New room, no peace
After walking for 5 minutes the rage within me got so bad that I had to turn back. I was harassed and then insulted in a manner that I could NEVER allow. So, I turned back and stormed past the people who had just scurried out of my way.
When I got back, the boy at the reception greeted me with a smile. It was a good result for me. He showed me a catalogue of all the rooms they had and I got to pick the one I wanted. Obviously I picked the biggest and most expensive one. No extra cost, of course.
I was able to calm down knowing that the Manager at this point probably knew he had truly fucked up. Nonetheless, I did not sleep well. He was still the Manager, which meant that he had keys to every room.
And with my experience you can never know which man is the one who physically hurts you. It is often men who you’d expect the least to do something bad. I was harassed by someone who had initially been so polite, lovely, professional and decent.
Getting Him Fired
Eventually I survived the hotel stay without encountering him, except for one breakfast where he came to check if everything was well. I couldn’t look at him, I was afraid I might attack him.
On the flight home I drafted an email about everything that had happened:
- how he had taken my number from the booking system without my permission
- the way I was harassed through texts that got worse and worse (I had screenshots of the texts if further proof was needed)
- about asking him to keep it polite and eventually to stop messaging me altogether
- how he had changed my room to one that was too small and included an inappropriate artwork considering the overall situation
- the way I felt extremely uncomfortable staying at the hotel as a solo traveler
- not being able to sleep because he could barge into my room any minute if he wanted to.
When home I concocted a clear email based on the draft. I then sent it to the hotel management and the hotel chain’s tourism and HR apartments.
NOTE: When reporting any sort of abuse, you must make sure to report to parties that will take it seriously. Highest management or people whose jobs could be affected by the harasser not abiding by the rules.
If you just message the hotel management, they can ignore it and trust that you won’t be back. But when you alert the higher management of a hotel chain, your message is more likely to get noticed.
I didn’t expect them to get back to me. But after just 2 days I got an email stating that it’s a very serious issue (true!), and that they had initiated an internal investigation into the matter. They promised to inform me of the results, whatever they may be.
I was harassed – Conclusion
A week later I received another email from them! They informed me that the Manager had admitted the wrongdoing and resigned his job. I was very happy with this, I felt that for once in my life justice had been served.
This does not mean, though, that an incident like this would just stop affecting me. Harassment always leaves a mark, whether it’s emotional or physical harassment. I will keep on traveling solo (I don’t really have an option). But I will forever be a little bit more cautious, a little bit more nervous, a lot less trusting.
I don’t feel comfortable dealing with male employees, whether it’s in restaurants, hotels or stores. I’m happy to be rude if I get even a little bit of a bad vibe. This is because I would rather make it very clear that they should stay well away from me, than risk them thinking that they have even a slight chance with me.
There are countries I will not travel to solo, even though I probably would be just fine. But every time I was harassed, I was shown that there’s no place on this planet where I’m fully safe. Thus, I don’t take risks as I used to. And that is a limitation that does not serve me.
I repeat, we can’t know which men are the abusive ones, which is why for people like me it truly is ALL MEN.
