Paris hotel refuses to honor reservation after learning tourists are Israeli citizens, forcing the family out in the middle of the night.
By World Israel News Staff
A French hotel refused to honor a reservation made by an Israeli family last week, leaving the family of three out on the street in the middle of the night.
The incident occurred last Wednesday at the Novotel Porte de Versailles hotel in Paris when Mahmoud Omri, an Arab-Israeli, and his wife and three-year-old child were checking in to the hotel.
Omri had secured a reservation ahead of time, with the price set beforehand.
During the sign-in process, however, the receptionist saw that the three were carrying Israeli passports.
At that point, the receptionist became hostile, and informed Omri that the price for the room had now increased and that the original reservation could not be honored.
His demeanor changed when he saw our Israeli passports,” Omri told La Parisien Monday. “He suddenly said we would have to pay 1,219 euro for the room and that our reservation was invalid.”
“When I showed him the reservation that I had made through the Booking.com website, he said the hotel was fully booked.”
Omri emphasized that once the receptionist realized the family held Israeli citizenship, his behavior was consistently demeaning and offensive.
“Israel, you think you are kings of the world, you will not get a room in this hotel,” Omri recalled the receptionist saying.
At 1:30 a.m., the three were forced to leave the hotel, and ultimately returned to the airport, where they found another hotel.
On Friday, Omri filed a complaint with local police.
Accor, the parent company which owns the hotel, has reportedly launched an investigation into the incident and offered compensation to the Omri family.
A hotel official responded to the controversy, claiming that the hotel was fully booked, and that the family had demanded a discount.
“The exchange became loud and the receptionist was the one to call the police,” hotel officials said.
The incident comes after a Japanese hotel also refused to honor an Israeli man’s reservations, accusing Israel of “war crimes” in the Gaza Strip and informing him that he would not be permitted to stay at the hotel.