My girlfriend and I just returned from staying at the Royalton Habana during our vacation to Cuba last week.

Unfortunately, our trip was tarnished by some really offensive "identification policies" that we experienced one night when we returned to the hotel.

The "identification policy" to which I'm referring seems to be an example of racial profiling and needs to change.

Let me be very specific here, because I understand the seriousness of my accusation.

When we entered the hotel lobby--on the night in question-- a male staff member refused to let us enter the elevators. (I'm a white male in my forties and my girlfriend is a black female in her twenties). I'm pretty fluent in Spanish and tried to explain that my girlfriend's name was on the reservation, and that he should verify this with the front desk. But this man demanded that we step out of the elevator and made quite a scene. He was loud and combative and extremely rude.

This situation occurred on our 3rd night staying in the hotel. The staff members throughout the hotel had seen us check-in together and spend the entire trip together. However, nobody stepped in to help clarify this situation with the "security" member.

Prior to this incident, we had witnessed several, young light-skinned women enter the hotel lobby with older, white male hotel guests and enter the elevators without any hassle.

I will let the readers draw their own conclusions about these implicit racial biases. It was a very upsetting situation.

Perhaps a better hotel policy would be for security staff members to verify with the front desk whose names are on a room reservation before confronting guests in a busy elevator. They could then politely and discretely make a phone call or knock on someone's door, if the reservation didn't match what they saw on a reservation. Or they could require all hotel guests to wear wristbands during their stay, if they are so concerned about "unregistered guests”

The upper management of the Royalton hotel group needs to call attention to this serious matter and better train their staff to understand the cultural and racial biases of their current “identification policies”.