A British hotel in the Legacy chain interrupted its guests’ stay with one final bit of hospitality: Escorting them back to their rooms, so they could pack their bags and leave.

Hotel guests were frogmarched to their rooms by security staff and given just 20 minutes to pack after it went bust., it was claimed last night.

Guests at the Springfield Hotel in Gateshead were escorted to their rooms and watched as they gathered together their belongings on Monday morning.

Thirty staff members were also told they had lost their jobs.

Certainly unpleasant for everyone involved. But did it have to be this abrupt?

The security guards are a nice touch. Wouldn’t want a disgruntled guest grabbing a copy of the Gideon Bible and some lovely drapes, would we?… These hotel guests weren’t just asked to leave. They were evicted.

Perhaps a few days’ lead time would have been a nice courtesy. Or maybe stop taking reservations? (The hotel’s website is still up and running as of this writing.)

So what do you do if you’re a guest and you’re given the boot? It’s very unlikely that the evicting hotel would make alternate arrangements or walk you to a different property. If the booking was handled by an agency, then that would be a place to start. But make no mistake, there is no happy solution here. Travel insurance might cover the costs of an alternate stay, and your credit card should reverse the charges of the booking, for a service that wasn’t rendered, but the onus is on the customer to find an alternative.

Here’s hoping that hotel evictions don’t become commonplace.