Why Hotel 'Do Not Disturb' Signs Are Disappearing

Travelers who crave privacy in their hotel room can't count on doorhangers to keep staff out anymore. First Disney tweaked the words on its doorhangers, swapping out "Do Not Disturb" and replacing it with "Room Occupied." This subtle adjustment was intended to remind guests of a new corporate policy, dictating that staffers must inspect rooms every 24 hours without exception. (If the sign lingers longer, staff will simply knock, and announce themselves, before entering.) The first hotels and resorts affected by this change were at Disney World, but the company has said it plans to make this a policy across all its hotels. Then, news broke that Hilton was adjusting its DND rules, too. Per Hilton’s new rules, whenever housekeeping staffers are barred entry to a room in this way, they must now slip a card under the door. This "Unable To Service" notice lets guests know that, should entry be barred for 24 hours or more, management can—and probably will—arrive to inspect the room.

It’s easy to assume that both policy changes were driven by the mass shooting in Las Vegas in October 2017, when gunman Stephen Paddock hung a "Do Not Disturb" sign on his room door for several days, thus concealing the ammunition he had smuggled on property. Certainly, Hilton’s new policy explicitly references this incident (Disney demurs). But according to lawyer Stephen Barth, who teaches at Houston’s Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management, DND doorhangers have been under review by the industry for some time. “We’ve been talking about them for a while now, probably the last 10 years. It started with meth labs, where customers were making meth in a hotel room, then you also have prostitution and human trafficking—all those things,” he says. Hotels, more conscious than ever of potential illicit activity on their grounds, have grown increasingly suspicious of how, when, and why those doorhangers are used; the incident in Las Vegas likely expedited a planned change.

We're not just talking mini shampoo bottles.

So what rights do travelers enjoy when they bar entry to a room with that flimsy DND sign? Put simply, almost none; those doorhangers are legally meaningless, hospitality lawyer Chris Johnston explains. Per the fourth amendment, guests can bar governmental agents from entering, as in their own home, but such restrictions don't extend to hotel staffers. “Part of every agreement to rent a room at a hotel is a waiver allowing hotel staff and employees to enter the room for a whole list of reasons, to check on the welfare of the guest or the maintenance of important mechanisms like A.C.,” he says. “The DND sign has no value between the guest and the hotel, unless the contract they sign states as such.”

The DND sign did not evolve within a particular legal framework, either, at least according to Edoardo Flores. The retired U.N. staffer is one of the world’s biggest collectors of these keepsakes, with more than 14,000 from across the world. He has spent the last 20 years accumulating examples, whether an ultra-rare doorhanger from the cardinals’ lodging Domus Sanctae Marthae in Vatican City or Rufus, the teddy bear guests leave outside their door as a privacy guard at Rufflets hotel in St. Andrews, Scotland (see samples of his esoteric haul here). Though they’re now ubiquitous across the world—there isn't a culture they haven't penetrated—the origins of such signs are murky. “My theory is that they probably came from the U.S. in the early 20th century, but your guess is as good as mine,” he says. Cornell’s Hospitality School archives also hold no documents that provide a definitive answer.

Though the DND sign might seem endangered by Hilton and Disney’s moves, there’s one reason it won’t likely vanish: money. In any full service hotel, the housekeeping department is typically the largest in terms of staffers and budget; saving on daily room checks—with their sheet and towels swaps and massive laundry costs—could certainly help the bottom line. No wonder some chains have started incentivizing guests to decline housekeeping. Take Starwood, which launched Make a Green Choice, where those happy to make their own bed and reuse towels receive a $5 F&B voucher to spend in the hotel. How do they communicate their choice? A DND card, of course.