Valladolid hoteliers would be victims of bad publicity due to fraud carried out by hackers, who pose as part of an accommodation reservation platform.
According to Héctor Bustos Sosa, president of the Hotel and Hostel Association, hackers pose as staff of a popular accommodation reservation platform, ask people for advance payments, and then block them.
According to the businessman, at least five local establishments are known to have been affected by the fraud.
The crime, he said, not only occurs in Valladolid, but nationwide, and that is why it is necessary to take measures to prevent it.
A few days before the summer vacation begins, future clients should verify the authenticity of the negotiations or call the hotels directly, and identify who they speak with in the reservations, he suggested.
Bustos commented that, in the case of this city, he said that he knows of at least five cases, in which two hotels have been involved in alleged fraud, in such a way that someone promotes the rooms through the platform.
The modus operandi would be that clients, believing that they are communicating with the platform, contact the fraudsters from whom they request a room. To do so they ask for advance payments to “secure” the rooms, and once they receive the advance payment they block the clients.
According to him, they already had talks with personnel from the platform involved to address the problem. They agreed to apply locks to their system and implement greater security measures to prevent fraud from continuing.
Regarding reservations, the hotel businessman stated that a few days before the end of the month they remained at 20% occupancy on a general average, which is alarming because it is not enough to cover operating expenses.
One of the factors of the low occupancy, he stated, is the surplus that there is now in the number of rooms which currently totals, which are around 1,500 rooms.
In the last four years, he recalled, the hotel offer has grown by 60%, while the growth and increase in overnight stays have been 20%, so that the number of rooms offered is much more, it even continues the construction of lodging centers in the city, which he considered for the moment as a wrong option for investors.
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