[belorn]

When visiting Egypt, the hotel took control of all the guests passport and only returned them at departure date. It is not the same as work relation, obviously, but I wonder how common that practice is in other tourist destinations.

[manarth]

It's incredibly unusual – I've not encountered that in any destination I've travelled to (including Egypt).

They'll usually make a photocopy of the passport during check-in, then immediately return it.