It’s common for businesses to have a “no photography/video” policy. Clothing stores are often trying to protect their designs and merchandising, other stores may be worried about people taking unflattering pictures or video of the business. In a luxury resort, a no photos policy might also be a way of protecting the privacy of prominent guests.

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Any Idea of which Hotel in Mauritius Darren?

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Sounds a bit over-zealous to me. I can see the point about other guests’ privacy, but the staff? They’re working in a customer-facing environment and it should be expected they may end up in video or photos by the guests.

Also, even with other guests, prominent such, as long as you’re not behaving as a paparazzi or stalking them, taking photos for your own use, of your own experience, should certainly be allowed.

Darren, I can understand your reluctance to mention the resort’s name, but I do think the resort is in the wrong here.

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I’ve come across this before and as much as I find it frustrating, I do understand it.

With the strong upswing of citizen journalists (bloggers like us and the birth of websites like Trip Advisor, the burn potential keeps going up. Let someone shoot a video of a guest misbehaving or a kid throwing up in the pool and you’ve just lost countless dollars in future revenue.

As for blaming the staff for privacy issues, it’s likely because they had someone turn around and ask a guest if she/he minded video being shot. Blame it on head office or staff and there’s no way to turn that question around.

As a journalist I’ve gotten around it by calling the PR rep ahead of time and agreeing to not shoot any *people* just scenery. As a regular vacationer, I think once you’ve been told to shut down the camera there’s probably not much else you can do.

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I should have mentioned in my previous post that I have some first-hand experience with this. Look at what happened at an international car rental company that was renting old, unsafe child safety seats once I, my camera, my blog, and then ABC news got ahold of them…

http://www.deliciousbaby.com/journal/2007/dec/22/advantage-rent-cars-frightening-car-seats/

There’s going to be an interesting adjustment period while businesses get used to the idea that almost anyone might be “reporting”

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Bloody crazy.

The world has gone nuts.

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