American Sign Language Signs for Hospitality: The Essentials

If you’re in the hospitality industry you deal with so many people from different backgrounds. While working at a hotel or on a cruise you will likely encounter someone who is Deaf, non-verbal, or Hard of hearing. Knowing American Sign Language (ASL) signs for hospitality can help you to assist everyone in every situation. This will not only provide an exceptional but memorable customer experience for your guests.

American sign language (ASL) signs for hospitality

Learning the ASL alphabet along with the most commonly used words and phrases in the hospitality industry can be most beneficial. The ASL alphabet is useful to know when you want to spell out words that do not have a sign such as people’s names, cities, countries or brand names. Or if you need to sign a word, but don’t know how you can fingerspell instead.

Here are 11 hospitality signs such as welcome, hotel, airport, suitcase, credit card and more to get you started. 

Note: Your “active hand” is the hand that you write with, in American Sign Language, and your passive is the other.

Welcome

If you know any sign at all, it should be this! “Welcome” is likely the first thing you’ll have to say to a guest. This ASL sign for hospitality is super simple and you simply put out your active hand, slightly cupped and swoop it down. 

Hotel

“Hotel” sign is done in your active hand forming an “H” shape and then putting your passive hand in the form of a “1” and place it in the active hand palm. Now make a wavy notion with your active hand with two extended fingers to mimic a waving flag.

Airport

For this sign, you use your active hand and mimic a plane taking off of the runway. If you’re in any major city, there’s likely an airport nearby. It wouldn’t be surprising for you to run into the need for this sign. 

Luggage/Suitcase

Maybe you need to ask someone if they have luggage or if they need it stored. Whatever it may be you can signal this by using one or both hands and pretending to lift up heavy luggage. 

Smoking

This is one of the more crucial ASL signs for hospitality to know if you interact with a guest requesting a smoking friendly area. It’s a very basic sign – you just act like you’re smoking with your middle and pointer fingers. 

Non-Smoking

This sign is just as important as the last! This is an ASL sign you need to know in hospitality in case they specifically ask for a non-smoking room. In the United States, a majority of the hotels are non-smoking but that’s not the case everywhere else. 

Train

You need to know this sign in case someone asks you for directions to a train station or about train times. In Europe, travel by train is wildly popular – you can travel by train from country to country!

Bill

Of all of the ASL signs for hospitality, this is one of the most important. No matter what your job is, there’s probably payment involved at some point. This sign is straightforward – simply face your palm out and rub your pointer fingers knuckle down your palm. Similar to how you would swipe a credit card. 

Passport

An essential sign if you are on a vacation to a foreign country, you start by making your active hand in an “S” shape and place your passive hand with an open palm up in front of the body. From the little finger side, tap your active hand on your passive hand once from your fingertips and move back to the heel of the hand and tap again.

Credit card

You can do this sign by placing your active hand in the form of an “S” shape and palm in, with your passive hand open and palm facing upwards. Slide your active hand back and forth on your passive hand like mimicking the old credit card machine.

Taxi

The most common sign for “taxi” is by fingerspelling each letter using your active hand.

Conclusion

Learning ASL words and phrases can help you build deeper connections with your guests. The relationship with your Deaf or Hard of hearing guests can change (for the better) when they see that you have made the effort and time to learn sign language. It not only makes them feel welcome but also makes them feel at home. The better the experience, the higher the chances of them staying at your hotel again, and even recommending your property within their network.

Want to learn more ASL signs for Hospitality? Continue learning with our ASL for Hospitality online course.