I would 1) tell the guy to .... off, 2) go down to the front desk and say that someone was harassing me on the elevator, 3) call the police.

I've never seen an armed hotel guard on guest floors anywhere outside the Middle East.

Because it infringes on my rights as a paying customer, who does not expect arbitrary rules to be imposed just to make and extra buck.

Good point. I've only seen armed guards above the lobby once at the Palmer House in Chicago when I got off the elevator and there were three large men with suits and Hilton name tags who were obviously carrying. I took the long way around to my room.

But I still think it wouldn't end well (for me) if a guard followed me and I ran back to the lobby or called the police.

Well, you have no "rights" to do anything on someone else's property unless the property owner gives you that permission. And some hotels have rules like no drugs, no guns, no durians, no cooking in the rooms, no pets, no hookers, no children, etc.

Do you think you also have a right as a paying customer to smoke cigarettes in a no smoking hotel? That's silly.

There was another thread on a similar topic about German hotels and whether one registered one person or two in the room - especially in a country like Germany where privacy is such an issue (and prostitution is legal) I'm guessing Mexico, not so much on the right to privacy. My point was that it shouldn't be any of the hotel's business who you have in the room as long as you've paid for the room and aren't breaking fire codes about occupancy. I have registered at many a hotel with my wife and they haven't asked for her passport, only mine, so not sure how they'd really check, other than to see that there's one person vs. two people paid for. I have also had friends come to my room for a visit and then leave after an hour or two - should they have to be registered? Overall thumbs down to any hotel that behaves this way and it certainly deserves a word with the manager at a minimum. The farthest stretch of a sliver lining I can think of here is that at least the security guard thought the wife was attractive enough to be a hooker. ;-)

Hotel property owners can deprive hotel customers of "'rights ' to do anything" except that which government prohibits the hotel from taking away/denying.

In other word, legitimate hotel customers may have rights to do things in a hotel even if the property owner doesn't want to grant permission to do so.

Once upon a time in the American south, hotel owners had rules against black people staying there. Did that make it ok since it was their property? Even with regard to what's "legal" vs. privacy rights - a dozen US states still have "anti-sodomy" laws, but I'm willing to bet there's plenty of sodomy going on in hotel rooms in those states - even from first-hand experience.

De facto hotel bans against "black people", rate discrimination and other forms of discrimination against visible ethnic minorities of sort was also a fact of life at hotels across various parts of the US, including in states that were self-identified parts of the North/Union during the Civil War.

"The Green Book" covered places from Mexico to Canada, from California to New England. Because it was needed when trying to avoid hotels that would engage in racist profiling/discrimination and selecting hotels known to be more open.

What if the companion is BOTH his wife and his hooker? I mean, what if she charges him for services?

How would that be resolved?

By sending the couple to the front desk and both being asked to prove they are the registered guests. But we ought to know that's not applicable to this situation since the "security" person probably indicated that they wanted the "companion" to register while signaling he was assuming the male guest was already registered at the hotel.

Hotels should know better than to exemplify what it means to "assume", but racist assumptions by hotel staff are unfortunately part of the travel scene. And this kind of stuff becomes worse after hotel staff receive "anti-human trafficking" "training" -- even in high income countries.

In every marriage you pay & pay and pay again regardless.

In fact, you don't pay a hooker to come, you pay a hooker to leave... :D

Just a little levity in an almost impossible situation to solve without ruffling some feathers.

Twice at the SF JW I had to get wristbands the day in advance in order to return to my room on New Year's Eve. While I can appreciate they are trying to prevent noisy room parties, why am I prevented from using my room in a quiet manner with whomever I please?

I responded previously & said not all options are bad. One has to have situational awareness & do what they deem is appropriate. In ScottKiwi's case, I would not have done as he did, which was to let a guy claiming to be security into his room to check things out.

And you can take it any way you want to, but yes I've stayed at hotels in New York City, Chicago & Nevada - as well as DC, San Francisco, New Orleans, Dallas, Detroit, Seattle, Orlando, Boston, Miami, Houston, Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Diego, etc, etc, and other large cities such as London, Paris, Vienna, Frankfurt, Berlin, Athens, Auckland, Sydney, Madrid, Amsterdam, Prague, Budapest, etc, etc.

Cheers.

I too wouldn't want to see a stranger follow me or otherwise try to come to my room without my prior knowledge of what was going on and the reason for them to be there being verified.

If I get a sense that someone is playing games in the elevator or when I get off the elevator, you can bet I'm staying in or around the elevator bank and going back to the lobby as soon as possible.

I've seen "security" play too many questionable games and be involved in too many crooked schemes and acts for me to have a default instinct to take at face value everything and everyone that claims "security" as a reason for their behavior/actions/words.

[QUOTE=RandomNobody;28434746]Spanish is very regional, especially considering it's spoken in such a wide area. Spain Spanish is much different than Mexican or South American Spanish.

For example, the word "pinche" is a uniquely Mexican curse word, and is used as a curse word only in Mexico. (it's an enhancer like the English "that f-ing idiot"). Everywhere else, pinche means kitchen helper/staff.

Same with "coger". "To take/pick up". In Mexican, it's essentially the sex act. There's a story about my uncle back when my dad's family were still migrant farm workers where he almost got in a fight with a non-Mexican Spanish speaker when that other guy asked if my grandmother wanted to "pick" with him in the field row he was in.
unquote

Oh dear, you are so right. Many years ago I wanted the earth to swallow me when a friend from Argentina said she would feed her baby son "bananas pisadas". In Central America that is a synonym for "coger" and it does not mean "picking" either.
Nuances of language open a world of misunderstandings.

You changed the conversation. This is about what a guest's RIGHTS are, not what is OK.

If the elevator guard has the right in Mexico to question whether a younger Latina with an older Caucasian could possibly be self-employed in the entertainment business, then that's that. Of course, guests have the right to stay away. And that may not only be the OP's only right, it may be his most important one.