Kyran Smith, 29, was jailed for seven and a half years earlier this year, following the assault at a Travelodge in Maidenhead, Berkshire, in December 2022.
The Thame-based chain’s chief executive Jo Boydell apologised to the victim in a statement on Sunday, and said the changes would ensure additional or replacement keys were only issued with permission from the person staying in the room.
“We got things wrong and we should have acted sooner and I am truly sorry for that,” she said.
Before Ms Boydell’s statement, the victim, who wishes to remain anonymous, told the BBC that Travelodge had “ample opportunity to deal with the case better” but “took a very long time to reply to me and didn’t really take it very seriously”.
Travelodge initially offered the victim a £30 refund, which she described as “insulting”, before the company issued an apology.
Ms Boydell said in the statement: “I would like to express again how deeply sorry I am for what happened to the victim and for the mistakes we made in handling this.
“We got things wrong and we should have acted sooner, and I am truly sorry for that.
“I would welcome the opportunity to meet the victim to discuss what happened and to learn from our mistakes.
“We have done an internal review of our room access security policies and have made some immediate changes to ensure that an additional or replacement room key is only issued with explicit permission from the person, or people, staying in the room.
“This has been rolled out to all of our hotels, supported by training for our 12,000 customer-facing colleagues.”
The CEO said the safety of guests and colleagues was the “most important thing” and the company had commissioned an independent review of its room security measures.
Smith, from Staines, Surrey, had been at the same party as the woman during a night out in December 2022 when they and others retired to their rooms.
He went to reception in the early hours and was given the key card after lying to staff that he was her boyfriend.
Labour MPs Matt Bishop and Jen Craft are due to meet Ms Boydell to discuss security at the hotel chain.
Commenting on the meeting, the victim said she was pleased the issue was being highlighted, adding: “There needs to be better procedures for the issuing of keys, for giving out anything to do with rooms.
“It’s frustrating that it takes something like this to then push those kind of things forward but I’m glad that they’re actually looking at it.”