It is rare that a hotel guest will pay the fee. Credit/debit cards forbid merchants from collecting for damages, so unless you have a signature signed or nowadays EMV chip approved transaction from the guest for the specific amount of the fee, they can simply do a chargeback and get their money back.
The next option is court, but of course, proving a specific person caused a specific damage in a hotel is also near impossible without spending too much in legal costs. Pets are always a headache for hotels because the probability of the pet causing high dollar amount damage is so high. Scratches and whatnot on furniture, ripping carpet, peeing and pooping. Replacing furniture and carpet and whatnot easily gets into thousands of dollars. I know the hotel I worked at made a loss on pets even though pet fees were collected.
>The point of the fee is less to be charged and more to signal that someone shouldn’t take the room if that’s a probability.
Yes, just like smoking fees. You basically have to re-floor and repaint the walls and probably replace all the furniture and fixtures to undo long term effects of cigarette smoke to a dwelling. Hence why any decent hotel will do mandatary semi weekly or at least weekly checks of all hotel rooms (regardless if the guest has a do or disturb sign).
Anytime you allow someone on your premises, you introduce all sorts of risks, and getting rid of them is not as simple as calling the police, especially when tenancy rights get involved such as with hotels. So if you want to stay in business, you have to be proactive on monitoring against these risks.
Hence the use of credit card security deposits as discrimination against those who have no credit cards. It is the most effective way to reduce your probability of having to incur huge costs from problematic hotel guests.