Image via Fox News

I have always loved learning about different places and cultures. I get a high from meeting people who hail from outside the 50 states. It’s a thrill to learn and understand new ways of living—different customs and traditions. What can I say? I’m a diversity diva.

This morning, my Google Alerts brought up this story on Fox News about a particular hotel staff in Maryland that includes place of origin on their name tags.

Book me a room to this hotel! Let me talk to these employees! Maybe not. I would probably keep them from doing their job for being so curious; I’d ask them a bazillion questions about their experiences about coming from interesting places like El Salvador and Trinidad.

But really, I think it’s brilliant that this hotel displays places of origin (some of which are from the good ol’ USA, of course) on their name tags. It’s smart for several reasons: it gives the foreign employees a sense of pride about their home country, it gives hotel patrons the opportunity to have a more “human” connection to the staff, and it increases patron trust
since identification is more specific.

Bottom line?

Name tags with places of origin are cool.

or…

If you’re a hotel manager, hide your staff from me because I’ll be too big of a distraction with my incessant questions.