The Seven Sins of Pet-Friendly · Sin 07 · For hotels
The Species Bait
Nearly every animal arriving at your property is a dog, and yet your listing still says "pet". The hedge buys you room to refuse at the desk, and it costs you the guest who read it as a promise.
You know it means dogs
Look at your own arrivals: they are dogs, overwhelmingly. You know the word means dogs. Writing "pet" anyway is a choice, and the choice is to stay vague, because a vague word preserves the option to say no later without having said no upfront. Guests can feel the hedge, and they read it as evasion.
The callback you generate
Every cat owner your "pet" listing attracts is a phone call your staff must field, a booking that cancels, and another person telling their community that the label lies. You are spending labour and goodwill to attract guests you will turn away, all to avoid writing one accurate word.
The hedge is the liability
The vagueness that lets you refuse a cat at the desk is the same vagueness that produces the dog owner who arrives expecting a welcome you never precisely offered. A word kept broad to preserve your options is a word broad enough to break your promise, and broken promises are what the reviews and, increasingly, the regulators are about.
Specificity fills rooms
Naming the species is not a concession, it is a filter that works for you. "Dogs welcome, up to this size, in these areas" screens out the bookings you would have cancelled and confirms the ones you can actually serve, before anyone travels. The precise listing is the efficient one.
Say dog, say which dogs
If you serve dogs, write dogs. Say which dogs, where they may go, what it costs. It is free, it is more accurate, it is safer than the vague claim, and it ends the callback, the cancellation and the argument at the desk in a single edit. The only thing "pet" buys you is the ability to disappoint people, and they are keeping the receipts.
Straight answers
See what guests write when they think nobody is listening. Every quote sourced. Read the complaints →
The other side of this page. Your guests are reading their own version of this. Read the guest version →
Sources
- Cat owner on repeatedly being told "by pet friendly, we just mean dogs". Reddit, r/vrbo.
- Dog and cat owners on "pet friendly" meaning dogs only, and hotels not saying so. Reddit, r/hyatt.
- Hong Kong SAR Government, official reply on pet-friendly premises, April 2025. info.gov.hk.