[Donny]

Did anyone encountered this and how to handle.

[ChristopherHartley]

As a retired veteran of hotel operations I'll put my feedback in. Food poisoning complaints will come regardless of your restaurant's sanitary practices. Even when you follow every health department mandate, your guests may assume another illness to be food poisoning because of the timing of their symptoms ("I got sick hours after eating at your place!")

If a guest does have legitimate food poisoning, the illness is almost always serious enough to require a trip to the hospital where testing will confirm the cause. Also, chances are you will have multiple calls as food poisoning is often not an isolated incident.

When you get a call about food poisoning, your job as a manager is to take the report while showing genuine concern for their well-being and report it up the chain of command. Follow up as your company's policies dictate. Your role is not to admit fault. You are not a doctor or health department inspector and cannot make that determination.

Christopher Hartley FIH

[expat]

Good Morning Mr. Hartley
very good advise on this issue. Specially here in the good old egypt clients often claims this problem,even with all cristal practices in check and a blank history on our side.
what most people travelling dont understand is,that climate change,local daily hygiene in the day to day live outside the hotel premises effects them more than 90% of the time
best regards
expat

ChristopherHartley, on 08 August 2012 - 06:23 PM, said:

As a retired veteran of hotel operations I'll put my feedback in. Food poisoning complaints will come regardless of your restaurant's sanitary practices. Even when you follow every health department mandate, your guests may assume another illness to be food poisoning because of the timing of their symptoms ("I got sick hours after eating at your place!")

If a guest does have legitimate food poisoning, the illness is almost always serious enough to require a trip to the hospital where testing will confirm the cause. Also, chances are you will have multiple calls as food poisoning is often not an isolated incident.

When you get a call about food poisoning, your job as a manager is to take the report while showing genuine concern for their well-being and report it up the chain of command. Follow up as your company's policies dictate. Your role is not to admit fault. You are not a doctor or health department inspector and cannot make that determination.

Christopher Hartley FIH

[JakubP]

1) check the guests billing where he/she ate and what - guests often get sick but when you look at their bill you see they never spent a cent in your restaurants for food

2) confirm with the guest all places he visited for eating the last 24 hours - especially in countries with a different climate and diet eating something the stomach is not used to can upset it, nothing to do with food poisoning and certainly not the hotels fault

3) check with guest for allergies or unusual diet habits

4) check for any other similar cases - sometimes you have a bunch of people at the table all eating the same, one feels not well and starts complaining. if its the food you should have them all in the hospital the same day

5) file a report and recommend to visit a doctor / hospital to confirm the poisoning - the guest might need it anyway for his/her medical insurance and it can clarify the issue right away. guests who refuse to see a doctor have a hard time claiming compensation

6) if its really something with the food, rebate the one dish only. drinks etc. especially alcohol remain charged in full and the rest is regular complaint handling procedure with a filed report and best remarks to the Kitchen/Chef :-)