“Do not disturb” in hotels

Most hotels give customers door tags with “Do not disturb” written on them. I don’t understand why. It’s obvious that no person ever wants to be ever disturbed. If you think that it’s something about cleaning the room, it isn’t: hotels give out these tags even when you’re staying for one night.

Plus, in hotels with actual keys, you give them to the reception when leaving. Therefore the hotel knows when you’re gone. In those with plastic cards, the hotel knows I’m in my room as soon I as open the door.

I am in one of these today, and there’s a button instead of a tag. The button works only when I have my card inside the slot (I tried the business card approach; everything works only when the card is in there), so I took a second card. And as soon as I come back from outside DND is deactivated so I have to press the button once more. This button would be super useful if it would physically block the door from being opened by hotel staff or anybody else with the key, but it just shines a barely noticeable LED.

P. S. Does the Ritz Carlton do this?

2 comments
Ivan Vetoshkin 2019

Sure it is about cleaning the room. There are these signs in any room just because picking them up from it in case the guest’s going to stay for one night is an extra action giving no profit, just taking staff’s time.

Kouta Y. Dagnino 2019

@Ivan Vetoshkin

I don’t think it has much to do with that. Hotels abide by a general rule that if someone stays for one night, their room is getting cleaned once, ONCE they leave. They’re not going to clean your room while you’re out, and then clean it again after you check out.

On a more general note to answer Robert’s question, I think it mostly has to do with two things, privacy and “eco friendliness”
1) Privacy: say a couple is staying at a hotel for a couple days. One afternoon, they decide to get intimate, but their room hasn’t been cleaned up yet. What should they do? Use the card. This way when the cleaning staff comes, they know not to knock. Furthermore, hotels are usually too busy (or just try to appear busy) to track down each room and tell the cleaning staff where and when to clean each room. They usually just go floor by floor and knock.

2) Eco-friendliness: some people don’t want their rooms to be cleaned every day to be carbon neutral, and just leave the do not disturb sign.

Robert 2019

You’re not listening to my point. “Do not disturb” should be always on when the hotel knows where I’m at.

P. S. “Clean my room” is a different tag/request button.