Hotels - a bad idea during Covid?

[MikeJ36]

So I was supposed to meet a lady of EI in a hotel (near the airport) this afternoon. I got there on time, parked, went in ... enquired about the parking at reception (and was told it was free for a certain amount of time & shown the machines to validate my ticket) ... but then the staff member asked for the reason for my visit to the hotel.

I came up with the excuse that I was dropping off a set of suitcase keys to a friend who was flying out tomorrow (I had an old pair of keys handy on my keyring that I didn't need), and shouldn't be long calling up to their room...

However, I was then told that it was strictly residents only in the rooms and that either they'd hang on to the keys there for my friend, or that my friend would have to come down to me.

Next came an awkward few mins where I rang the lady to explain, then reception rang her room and double checked with her, she came down to meet me in reception, we had a chat, the receptionist reiterated that I couldn't go upstairs, we did a pretend handover of the keys and I left.

Was kicking myself that I wasn't familiar enough with the hotel to a) know about their parking ticket machines and b) know where the stairs were so I could just confidently walk on through & up... but... just wondering... (after this experience... and not being able to "complete the transaction" today)... is this the norm in hotels at the moment?