As a passive hotel owner and active programmer, I can confirm it's always been the case. In the hotels business, getting customer requests, invoices and refund requests seemingly out of nowhere isn't too uncommon. Receptionists, who have the authority handle customer cancellations and refunds, but also package / documents receipt for them, frequently fall for the slightly more laborious scams, in spite of the safeguards in place.
The phishing emails we get at my software dev job for security certification and pen testing pale in comparison to the actual effort being put in by scammers, who coordinate bookings with parcels and random invoices so that they tell a story, always targeting different shifts (almost never the same).
As the other commenter has posted, refunds for inexistent bookings or refunds for someone else's booking are pretty frequent.
Other simple stuff is overdue payments for fictive deliveries such as soaps, toilet paper, cleaning bills or even outsourced work.
The more complex scams involve making bookings and sending packages with fees and totals paid by the recipient, they try to convince the receptionists that their package needs to be delivered, and an actual delivery of random stuff happens using a real delivery company to complete the scam. They don't always mention that there's payment required on delivery.
Other scams involve claiming lost luggage, wallets, electronics without them being the owners, and trying to convince the receptionist to send the item internationally. We're a hotel next to the airport, so international travellers are the norm, plus we have a room full of lost stuff. They make a booking with a fictional name, then cancel it or no show, and then ask for their black luggage, black wallet, tablet, gold bracelet, etc.
The phishing emails we get at my software dev job for security certification and pen testing pale in comparison to the actual effort being put in by scammers, who coordinate bookings with parcels and random invoices so that they tell a story, always targeting different shifts (almost never the same).