I reckon he did them a favour. If the hotel had got past any fire regulations, it would have remained a tinder box where unsuspecting guests would have stayed.
Fairly common practice, I think, particularly where there is limited space for insulation (eg a house with rooms in the attic). Usually sheets of some kind of foil and expanded polystyrene sandwich.
Normally perfectly safe unless you train a blowtorch on it /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif.