Front desk etiquette at a luxury hotel
The front desk is a hotel's reception and its staff; the house has no arrangement with any hotel, so each building's own visitor rules apply to every arrival.
In a five-star property the front of house is several people rather than one counter. A doorman stands at the street, a bell desk handles luggage, reception checks guests in, a concierge keeps the restaurant lists, and after midnight a night manager watches over all of it. A visitor to a guest's room passes some or all of these on the way up. None of them plays any part in the reservation.
No understanding with any hotel
The house has never sought an arrangement with a hotel, which guests sometimes find surprising. The reasoning is simple. A hotel's front of house works for the hotel and its residents, and a reservation made by message is a matter between the guest and the house. No member of staff is asked to do anything for it.
Every building keeps its own rules
She arrives as any visitor would and goes to the room number the guest has given, so there is nothing for the guest to arrange at reception. How a hotel receives visitors is the hotel's decision, and whatever the building asks of a visitor applies to her as it would to a friend or a colleague calling in.
Houses with a visitor rule
A minority of hotels require late-evening visitors to sign in at reception or to be accompanied from the lobby. The house would rather learn this when the reservation is made than discover it at the door. With a line in the thread, the arrival follows that rule: she signs in where signing in is asked, or the guest steps down to the lobby and walks back up with her. The guide to hotel visitor policies reads the common rules closely.
A guide to front desk etiquette traces that walk from street to corridor, and the journal note on what the night porter notices considers the view from behind the counter.