NH hotel ‘deeply sorry’ after throwing out box of passports, leaving students stranded for days

LINCOLN, New Hampshire — The management team of the New Hampshire hotel that destroyed the passports of dozens of students from England is apologizing and explaining what happened.

Forty-two students and four staff members from the Barr Beacon School in Walsall, West Midlands, England, recently traveled to the Kancamagus Lodge in Lincoln NH for a ski trip, the school’s headmaster Kate Hibbs said.

“We’ve heard a lot of anger and disappointment these last two weeks in response to an unfortunate, regrettable situation that occurred involving one of our visiting ski groups,” Kancamagus Lodge management said in a statement on Facebook. “We are deeply sorry. We take full responsibility and offer a genuine apology to our guests and community.”

On February 19, a manager of Kancamagus Lodge was cleaning and organizing the back office. While collecting items to be thrown away, the box the passports were in, was accidentally taken and thrown away to the on-site dumpster.

When one of the teachers came and asked to add a student’s passport to the box, the management team realized that the passports had been accidentally destroyed.

“Our scheduled, contracted garbage disposal company emptied the dumpster and promptly destroyed all contents,” managers said “We immediately notified the guests and began working with our guests to come to the most satisfactory resolution. We worked closely with the tour operating company, contributing however we could towards their extended stay, to come to a swift, safe, and successful resolution that was satisfactory to all involved.”

After leaving New Hampshire, the group traveled to the British Embassy in New York to apply for emergency documentation to allow them to travel back to England.

The group, who initially planned on flying home the weekend of February 25, flew home on March 1.

“In addition to offering our profound apologies to our guests and their families, we also offer our sincere apology to our community for not representing our industry to the best of our ability and for not living up to the expectations you have of us,” the managers said in the statement.

The Kancamagus Lodge is putting new protocols into place to make sure a mishap like this will not happen again and that they can continue to protect all their guests. The management team said that they will be connecting with fellow industry professionals to help them better understand the industry standards and amplify the guest experience in order for them to put guests first.

“Our values will guide everything we do. Our guests and community expect more from us and we promise we can and will be better. We are committed to putting proof behind our promise. Thank you for gifting us the opportunity to re-earn your trust.”

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