Hotel Buildings

Broadly classified as the lodging industry,♦ the term hotel is “an all-inclusive designation for facilities that provide comfortable lodging and generally, but not always[,] food, beverage, entertainment, a business environment, and other ‘away from home’ services.”1 Included among these “away from home” guest room services are room cleaning; laundering of bed linen and bathroom towels (and dry cleaning of personal clothing if required); toilet and bathing facilities; telephone and network communications; bedding, furniture, and sometimes a refrigerator and cooking facilities (such as a coffee machine, a stove, a microwave, and common-area vending machines); in-room dining; and in-room entertainment in the form of radio and television.

“The hotel may be a high-rise building or part of a larger high-rise office complex.”2 It may also be a conference hotel with multipurpose meeting facilities designed for large-scale gatherings; a casino hotel where patrons can play slot machines, gamble on card games, dice, and roulette, and bet on sporting events; or a resort hotel with “a campus-style setting offering skiing, golf, boating, horseback riding, and other activities.”3 Some hotels are even attached to amusement parks.

If the hotel shares a building with other separate occupancies, such as offices and apartments or residences (including hotel-residences), it is considered to be a mixed-use building (which is addressed in Chapter 12).

This chapter addresses high-rise hotel buildings. To systematically examine the security and fire life safety of such buildings, this discussion addresses the following areas: occupancy characteristics; assets, threats, vulnerabilities, and countermeasures; security programs; and emergency planning.

Occupancy Characteristics

“Today's hotels may offer a variety of services and activities for their transient and permanent guests. A traveler who is staying at a hotel for a limited period of time is commonly described as a guest. Besides providing for lodging and meals, hotels usually have newsstands, retail shops [such as boutiques], restaurants, cocktail lounges, [coffee bars,] health clubs, concierges, and other quality services [which may include laundry and dry cleaning services and business centers with high-speed Internet connections]. Generally, parking facilities are available [many of which include self-park and valet service]. Some have recreational facilities, such as saunas [spas/hot tubs,] and swimming pools, while others may offer tennis and racquetball courts, gyms, and exercise rooms.”4 According to Bell,

[Hotels] are unique in that they almost always combine several different occupancies under one roof. In addition to guest rooms or guest suites, which are residential occupancies, hotels usually provide space for assembly occupancies such as ballrooms, meeting rooms, exhibition halls, and restaurants; or mercantile♦ occupancies such as shopping areas, gift shops, and other retail areas; and offices and commercial establishments, or business♦♦ occupancies.

…Many large hotels also contain industrial-type laundries and dry cleaning facilities, as well as kitchens, which use large broilers, ovens, and deep-fat fryers.

Larger-scale hotel building configurations often have atria two or three stories high and sometimes up to sixty stories high, which are often the focal point of building design. Atrium areas themselves may include several occupancies or mixed functions associated with hotel operations [on lower floors these consist of restaurants and retail establishments (and possibly the main reception area), and on upper floors they consist of guest rooms located on corridors that face the open space of the atrium].

Some structures also may include parking facilities which may be open, enclosed, above- or below-ground, and often directly beneath or adjacent to the hotel itself. These arrangements may require special types of fire protection, and the building codes may require fire separations.5

“Limited-service hotels are free-standing properties that do not have on-site restaurants or most other amenities that must be provided by a staff other than the front desk or housekeeping. They usually offer continental breakfasts, vending machines or small packaged items, Internet access, and sometimes unattended game rooms or swimming pools in addition to daily housekeeping services.”6

The number of occupants in hotels will vary according to the day of the week (including whether it is a weekend or holiday), time of the day, and the season or time of the year. Early in the day, because most guests are generally required to check out by approximately noon each day, there may be higher numbers of people in the reception area around that time. If the hotel caters to a large number of businesspeople, there may be more guests checking in at the reception areas late in the afternoon and early in the evening, particularly on Sundays through Thursdays. The types of amenities and services offered by the hotel will also affect the number of persons in hotel common areas. For example, if there are restaurants, bar facilities, function rooms, banquet rooms, and exhibition halls, there may be high concentrations of people around break times, meal times, evening hours, or when meetings and special events are being held. Of course, during the early hours of the morning, when these facilities are usually closed and many guests are sleeping, the number of people in hotel common areas will be much lower.♦

Generally speaking, individual hotel buildings are managed by one group; this will consist of a general manager, assistant managers, department heads, and administrative staff, plus support staff such as PBX operators,♦♦ receptionists, bell captains, concierge staff, valet parking attendants, hotel limousine drivers, housekeepers, laundry staff, engineers, security personnel, and, particularly in larger facilities, kitchen and catering personnel, gardeners, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, painters, elevator technicians, and others associated with hotel operations. The actual number of staff members will vary according to the size of the hotel, the services that it offers, the complexity of its operations, and the security needs of each individual facility.

During normal business hours (i.e., Monday to Friday, during the daytime), usually the general manager will be on duty; after hours (i.e., Monday to Friday, late afternoon until the next morning; weekends and holidays), an on-duty manager will usually be present.

During the daytime hours (particularly from morning to early to mid-afternoon) when guest rooms are being cleaned and refurbished with supplies, usually there is a higher concentration of housekeeping staff. After hours, most hotels (except large ones, such as those that provide special facilities such as ballrooms, meeting rooms, exhibition halls, restaurants, and gambling casinos) have fewer engineers, maintenance personnel, and other support staff on duty; although, the number of security staff members may increase (again, staffing needs will vary according to the size of the hotel, the services that it offers, the complexity of its operations, and the security needs of the facility).

Assets, Threats, Vulnerabilities, and Countermeasures

A risk assessment (as detailed in Chapter 4) is an important tool for developing an appropriate security and fire life safety program for a hotel. A “risk assessment analyzes the threat, asset value, and vulnerability to ascertain the level of risk for each critical asset against each applicable threat. Inherent in this is the likelihood or probability of the threat occurring and the consequences of the occurrence. Thus, a very high likelihood of occurrence with very small consequences may require mitigation measures [countermeasures], but a very low likelihood of occurrence with very grave consequences may require more costly and complex mitigation measures. The risk assessment should provide a relative risk profile. High-risk combinations of assets against associated threats, with identified vulnerability, allow prioritization of resources to implement mitigation measures.”7

Key steps in the process involve examining the assets, the threats against the assets, the vulnerabilities of the assets, and the countermeasures or mitigation measures that can be used to address identified vulnerabilities of the assets (within the confines of risk management). These areas are now examined for hotel buildings. (Although it addresses many areas, the scope of this chapter does not include accounting measures such as credit and billing procedures, inventory controls of items such as guest towels and sheets, alcohol and food, or detailed lodging property's rights and duties, liability, and insurance matters.)

Assets

Tangible assets in hotels include the lives of guests, visitors, contractors, vendors, and the hotel staff; guest's personal property; and the building itself, its fittings, and its equipment. Building equipment includes the electrical, water, gas, mechanical, heating, ventilating, air-conditioning, lighting, elevator, escalator, communication, security, and fire life safety systems. In addition, there are other types of assets that may include telephones, computers, printers, fax machines, photocopiers, and audio-visual equipment (including radios and televisions in guest rooms, foyers, restaurants, and bars), equipment in meeting rooms and business and conference centers, housekeeping supplies, and general-use items (refrigerators, coffee machines, stoves, microwaves, furniture, and common area vending machines), and sometimes antiques and works of art, cash and negotiable instruments (particularly in the reception area, restaurant, bar, retail shops, and shop inventory warehouse), and high-value merchandise (such as liquor in the hotel liquor vault and silverware in storage rooms). In addition, there may be assets in kitchens, laundries, dry cleaning facilities, fitness centers, saunas, swimming pools, spas/hot tubs, tennis and racquetball courts, dining areas, restaurants, retail shops, newsstands, business centers, and other facilities for guest services, as well as vehicles parked in the facility's parking garage.

Intangible assets include the livelihood of hotel guests, visitors, contractors, vendors, and the hotel staff; intellectual property and information stored in paper files, reference books, and within computer systems and peripherals; and the reputation and status of the hotel.

Threats

The types of security and fire life safety threats to hotel building assets are outlined in Chapter 3. Briefly they include the following:

• • Security threats to people: assault, assault and battery, kidnapping, manslaughter, mayhem, murder, robbery, sex offenses (including rape, sexual harassment, and lewd behavior), and stalking.
• • Security threats to property and information: aberrant behavior, arson, burglary, cyberattack, disorderly conduct, espionage, larceny, sabotage, theft, trespass, and vandalism. In addition, there may be the disruption of building utilities such as water; electrical power; natural gas; sewer; heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC); telecommunications; security; and fire life safety systems. Some security threats may involve terrorism.
• • Security threats to people and property: bombs, chemical and biological weapons, civil disturbance, fires, hazardous materials, natural disasters, and nuclear attack.
• • Life safety threats: aircraft collisions; bombs and bomb threats; daredevils, protestors, and suicides; elevator and escalator incidents; fires and fire alarms; hazardous materials, chemical and biological weapons, and nuclear attack; kidnappings and hostage situations; labor disputes, demonstrations, and civil disorder; medical emergencies; natural disasters (earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, heat waves, storms, and floods and landslides); contractible diseases (pandemic influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome, and tuberculosis); power failures; slip-and-falls; stalking and workplace violence; traffic accidents; and water leaks.

Threats to Guests

“Providing security in a hotel or motel is the broad task of protecting people—guests, employees, and others—and assets. Crimes involving the theft of assets usually result in greater losses to lodging properties than crimes against persons, but crimes against persons have a greater effect on public relations (and therefore occupancy) and may generate high legal expenses.”8

According to Kaminsky,

Innkeepers♦ are held to the highest standard of care♦♦ of all landlords…. Hence, when a guest at a hotel or motel is the victim of a crime, the landowner is confronted with a very difficult lawsuit. Aside from the elevated standard of care issue, there is something inherently frightening about crimes committed in a hotel or motel; victims are often hundreds of miles from home—often on business trips to an unfamiliar city—and they have to put their safety in the hands of the innkeeper. Jurors can easily relate to this scenario, and the defense should expect that jurors will have little tolerance for crimes committed in hotels or motels.9

According to Callaghan,

The lodging industry is somewhat different from other businesses in that customers are present 24 hours per day, seven days a week, in effect living with hotel proprietors. The close proximity of customers, as well sometimes-informal situations in which they find themselves, can lead to problems. These include a myriad of incidents that can be referred to as acquaintance assaults. Examples are two people sharing a room who are fighting with one another, people meeting and getting into an argument in a lounge area, and incidents where one guest reports that he or she was sexually assaulted by another. These crimes often occur without witnesses.10

“There is the possibility that an assailant who victimized a guest followed the victim back to the [guest] room after encountering him or her elsewhere. There will be many instances when criminals readily spot out-of-state visitors, either in tourist areas or other locations, and target them at that time.”11 ♦ Such crimes may lead to attacks in hotel parking garages, as well as in the hotel itself.

Also, “crimes of opportunity” such as confidence tricks♦♦ may occur against guests and patrons in hotel lobbies, restaurants, bars, casinos, and other facilities.

Threats from Guests and Employees

“While recognizing the need for the protection of the guests, the employees, and the assets of each, management must also recognize that guests and employees may themselves create security problems by stealing property and services from the hotel.”12 For example, thefts and check and credit card fraud may occur at the front desk, in bars, restaurants, retail stores, casinos, recreation facilities, and any other hotel facilities that handle money transactions. As Beaudry commented,

Incidents involving “walk-outs” are common when nonpaying customers enjoy a meal and/or drinks in a hotel and then proceed to leave without offering to pay for items consumed.… Frequently, if the patron is caught leaving, they can be confronted and—if they refuse to pay—be held long enough for security or the public police to arrive. The thief then can be identified for future reference or prosecution. The amount of loss is usually not worth the time required to prosecute, so it is recommended that the name and description of the individual be recorded and distributed to all outlets in the hotel. You may also try alternate means of payment (e.g., having a family member pay, or requesting [a] form of payment like cash). If the person tries to obtain food or drink again, they can be refused until they pay for the previous bill….

The security department must face problems ranging from guests using stolen credit cards and cards over their allowable limit to dishonest employees inflating gratuities or even writing in gratuities. The best means of avoiding these and other scams is to develop detailed policies and procedures for authorization of use, and to train employees to follow the procedures. Charging store merchandise [and meals in hotel restaurants and services in recreation facilities] to a guest room, for example, must somehow be verified first [by, say, requesting photo identification and the room key or keycard itself]. Management must then follow up to ensure compliance with the rules, and violators should be dealt with appropriately.13

In addition, guests may steal items from their room (such as alcohol and food items from in-room containers, bathing towels, bed linen, bathing robes, hair dryers, coffee pots, television sets, clock radios, computer peripherals, artwork, light fixtures, and, as unlikely as it may seem, even furniture), cutlery and china from in-room dining carts (particularly those left in the corridors outside of guest rooms), tableware from hotel dining areas, and various items left unsecured in meeting and banquet rooms, exhibition halls, recreational areas, and other facilities.

In addition, there may be other security- or crime-related incidents—such as illegal gambling and prostitution—that occur in guest rooms. These crimes involve the guest knowingly inviting the participant to his or her hotel room. In the case of the latter, prostitution, Beaudry noted,

Some of the comments frequently heard about prostitution [are] that it is a victimless crime and that society should not care what consenting adults do in privacy. However, prostitution is a problem that, if not controlled, can ruin a hotel's reputation. The word controlled was used intentionally, for prostitution cannot and will not be eliminated. The security objective should be to reduce such activity to an absolute minimum. A hotel's reputation is, without doubt, its single most important asset. No matter how professional the hotel's services may be or how good a value may be offered, no one respectable will stay at your hotel if this type of activity is allowed to take place openly.

It is not the prostitutes (both males and females) that are in and of themselves a concern, but rather the peripheral activity that frequently accompanies prostitution. Theft of the guest's property, assaults on the guests, and drugs are only a sample of the concerns associated with this crime. It is in the best interest of the hotel operator and guest alike to control prostitution.

There are a number of simple control methods a hotel can employ. First, guest registration procedures must be established and followed closely. All guests must be required to show valid photo identification such as a driver's license and preferably a credit card when checking in, even if they are paying cash in advance for their stay. The reason for the tight registration process♦ is that most streetwalkers will not carry identification. The more sophisticated “call girl” or “escort” type of prostitute will have identification, but he or she also represents less of a threat to the innkeeper.

The second method of control can be utilized in properties that have computerized front desk procedures and can print out a complete list of all guests by room as well as list the number of occupants registered in that particular room. Once given that list, particularly at night when guests are returning to their rooms with visitors they may have just met in a local bar, the security officer can screen all incoming guests at the front door. (This works very well when hotel policy regarding visitor access after a certain hour is implemented.) This method has two benefits. First, the innkeeper [may be] entitled as a matter of law to additional revenue if a second person is staying in the room. Second, if in fact the “visitor” is a streetwalker, not only will she or he not have identification as noted above, but the guest may or may not want to risk having a second person listed on the registration folio.♦♦

The final two methods of prevention include employee cooperation. The housekeeping department will know if a certain guest room has heavy traffic going to and from it and can alert security. Secondly, hotel managers must maintain a no-tolerance attitude towards prostitution while supporting security in its efforts to deal with the problem. Common meeting places for prostitutes are lobby pay telephones [now less frequent due to the advent of mobile telephones], bars, and easily recognized hotel fixtures such as chairs, plants, and the like.14

Sometimes, hotel staff may even be involved in the prostitution activities. “In some cases, employees working in collusion with the front desk or even with security staff members have provided prostitutes to guests.”15 If the problem cannot be adequately dealt with, hotel management, in consultation with legal counsel, may want to seek the cooperation of local law enforcement.

The sale and use of illegal drugs by guests can also occur in hotels. According to Beaudry,

It is very unlikely that a hotel manager will be able to prevent a guest from using drugs in the privacy of his or her room. If, however, the manager becomes aware of such use, action should be taken. Limited use (e.g., smoking a marijuana cigarette) may best be handled by warning the guest that repeated activity will result in removal from the hotel. However, evidence of a more serious use (such as large parties with cocaine left out in the open) may require assistance from the local police. It is common for drug dealers to use large urban hotels to conduct their drug deals, for the size of the hotel usually will ensure their anonymity.16

In addition, the potential also exists for a guest room to be set up as a temporary, mobile laboratory manufacturing illicit drugs such as methamphetamine.♦

A room can even be used for “surreptitious meetings among dangerous persons such as [gangsters,] terrorists, and drug dealers.”17 Of course, due to the openness of hotels, this is difficult to prevent.

“Large hotels host large parties, weddings, reunions, conventions, conferences, [exhibits], seminars, sales meetings, and the like. Employees, especially the event planner, regularly face a myriad of crime- and security-related incidents.”18 Sometimes, problems arise when large groups that are traditionally antagonistic to each other have events at the hotel at the same time. Often, the excessive use of alcohol or drugs can be the trigger for incidents to occur.

“Depending on the size and location of a hotel, certain types of public figures are likely to stay as guests on occasion. In larger, convention-class hotels, political figures are often in attendance for social events. Public figures, whether they are politicians or people such as rock stars or sports teams, often will draw crowds. These crowds may be admirers, or they may be demonstrators protesting the appearance of the individual…. [T]he security manager should be prepared to work with the authorities in planning for the person's arrival, stay, and departure.”19 Additional hotel security staff will often be required to handle these occasions.

Notable Incidents

Some notable incidents20 that have occurred in high-rise hotels are shown in Table 10–1 .

Table 10–1.

Notable High-Rise Hotel Building Incidents

Date	Building	Incident	Persons Killed/ Injured
December 7, 1946	Winecoff Hotel, Atlanta, Georgia	Fire	119 killed, 91 injured
January 26, 1969	Victoria Hotel, Dunnville, Ontario, Canada	Fire	13 killed
December 25, 1971	Tae yon Kak Hotel, Seoul, South Korea	Fire	163 killed (greatest loss of life in a hotel building fire)
September 1, 1973	Copenhagen Hotel, Denmark	Fire	35 killed
November 21, 1980	MGM Grand Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada	Fire	85 guests and hotel employees killed, approximately 600 injured
December 31, 1980	Dupont Plaza Hotel & Casino, Puerto Rico	Fire	97 killed (84 in the casino), more than 140 injured
February 10, 1981	Las Vegas Hilton Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada	Fire	8 killed, 350 injured
October 18, 1984	Alexander Hamilton Hotel, Paterson, New Jersey	Fire	15 killed, more than 50 injured
July 11, 1997	Royal Jomtien Resort, Pattaya, Thailand	Fire	91 hotel guests and staff killed, 51 injured
September 11, 2001	Marriott World Trade Center Hotel (WTC 3) at New York World Trade Center, New York	Collapse of New York WTC Twin Towers	2 hotel employees killed♦
May 8, 2002	Sheraton Hotel, Karachi, Pakistan	Car bomb	14 killed (including 11 French engineers, 3 Pakistanis)
November 28, 2002	Hotel Mombassa, Kenya	Car bomb	13 killed (including 3 Israelis)
August 5, 2003	JW Marriott Hotel, Jakarta, Indonesia	Car bomb	11 killed (including 2 Americans), 144 injured
September 20, 2008	Marriott Hotel, Islamabad, Pakistan	Truck bomb	53 killed, more than 250 injured
November 26, 2008	Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel and the Oberoi Hotel,♦♦ a train station, a Jewish Center, a movie theater, and a hospital, Mumbai, India	Machine guns, hand grenades, and military-grade explosives	171 killed (including 6 foreigners), and more than 300 injured

^♦According to the New York Times, “No precise number of casualties for the Marriott exists, but it is likely, based on eyewitness accounts analyzed by the New York Times, that no fewer than 50 people inside the hotel were killed. At least 41 of those were firefighters, and the number could be much higher. Besides Mr. Keller [Joseph Keller the executive housekeeper], another Marriott employee, Abdu A. Malahi, was killed. As for guests, 11 of the 940 registered guests that day were ‘ unaccounted for, ’ said Cathy Duffy, a spokeswoman for Marriott. It is not known if they died in the building or were elsewhere in the complex ” (Dwyer J, Fessenden F. One hotel's fight to the finish; At the Marriott, a portal to safety as the Towers fell. The New York Times, September 11, 2002. <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res9B07EFD81431F932AC0A9649C8B63>; March 16, 2009).

^♦♦Such a coordinated attack on a hotel is difficult to protect against due to the open access of most hotels throughout the world.

Fire Risk in Hotel Buildings

Fire is a constant risk in high-rise hotel buildings. “Since hotel guests are [primarily] transients, special consideration must be given to the potential threat to their life safety from fire. For example, occupants of the residential portion of a hotel sleep in unfamiliar surroundings and could possibly become disoriented when trying to evacuate under heavy smoke conditions. Likewise, persons in ballrooms, lounges, [casinos,] and restaurants could become disoriented due to low-level lighting, crowd size, and unfamiliarity with evacuation routes.”21

In discussing fire risk,♦ it is helpful to analyze fire incident data♦♦ for the four property classes—office buildings, hotels and motels,♦♦♦ apartment buildings, and hospitals (and other facilities that care for the sick)—that account for the majority of high-rise building fires.22 Even though this data pertains only to the United States, it is worth considering because it includes the types of commercial buildings that are addressed in this book (namely, office, hotel, residential and apartment, and mixed-use buildings).

A study by Dr. John Hall, Jr., of the National Fire Protection Association's (NFPA) Fire Analysis and Research Division, using statistics from the U.S. Fire Administration's National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS), stated that from 1987 to 1991, office buildings, hotels and motels, apartment buildings, and facilities that care for the sick averaged 13,800 high-rise building fires per year and associated annual losses of 74 civilian deaths, nearly 720 civilian injuries, and $79 million in direct property damage. However, “most of these high-rise building fires and associated losses occurred in apartment buildings.”23 Hall added that for this period,

• •Only a small share of high-rise building fires spread beyond the room of origin, let alone the floor of origin.
• •In high-rise buildings [office buildings and hotels and motels], electrical ditribution system fires rank first in causes of fire-related property damage.24

The most recent published study by Hall shows that “in 2002,25 high-rise buildings in these four property classes combined had 7,300 reported structure fires and associated losses of 15 civilian deaths, 300 civilian injuries, and $26 million in direct property damage.”26 He concluded that “these statistics generally show a declining fire problem over the nearly two decades covered”27 and, similar to his previous findings, “most high-rise building fires and associated losses occur in apartment buildings.”28 However, Hall did caution that, due to a number of factors (one being lower participation in national fire incident reporting in recent years29 ), “the patterns shown in data available so far should be given limited weight.”30

It is worth noting here that, as previously mentioned, some buildings, particularly “larger-scale hotel building configurations often have atria two or three stories high and sometimes up to sixty stories high, which are often the focal point of building design. Atrium areas themselves may include several occupancies or mixed functions associated with hotel operations.”31 The presence of an atrium constitutes a fire risk. If a fire occurs on the lower floors of the atrium (for example, in a restaurant or a retail space), then the resulting smoke and heat can rise up through the atrium and possibly reach guest rooms on upper floors located on corridors that face toward the atrium). To reduce this risk, according to Brannigan and Corbett,

Building codes specify numerous requirements for atria: full sprinkler protection throughout the building (with the exception of the top of the atrium itself if it is more than 55 feet [16.8 meters] above the floor because it is felt that sprinklers will not activate so high above the floor), a smoke control system to minimize the movement of smoke onto the adjacent floors to the atrium and to move the smoke out of the building, and standby power for the building.

In addition, the fire code requires that the floor of the atrium be limited to “low” fire hazards. Author Corbett has seen this violated many times with moderate and high fire hazards such as live, cut Christmas trees; propane grills in food kiosks; and large plastic displays. This provision is difficult to enforce (hence the desire for sprinklers at the top of tall atria).32

It is worth noting here that in his book, High Rise/Fire and Life Safety, O'Hagan stated that high-rise residential building fires, including those in hotel rooms, to some extent are different in nature and not as severe as fires in high-rise office buildings (see earlier discussion in Chapter 2). Two of his stated reasons for this position are (1) high-rise residential buildings are typically of masonry construction and lack the empty spaces between the interior of their exterior walls and the outer edges of their floors (that typify the curtain walls of steel-framed [core construction] buildings) and (2) for privacy and usage reasons, residential buildings are typically compartmentalized with walls and partitions that have adequate fire resistance to withstand the fire until the arrival of the fire department; as a result, individual fires are considerably smaller in area.33

Vulnerabilities

Weaknesses that can make an asset (in this case, a hotel building and its operations) susceptible to loss or damage34 will largely depend on the building itself and the nature of its operations. A vulnerability assessment is required to “evaluate the potential vulnerability of the critical assets against a broad range of identified threats/hazards.”35 (See Chapter 4.)

“Lodging property security efforts may involve such areas of concern as guestroom security, key control, locks, access control, perimeter control, alarm systems, communication systems, lighting, closed-circuit television, safe deposit boxes, inventory control, credit and billing procedures, computer security, staffing, pre-employment screening, employee training, responsible service of alcoholic beverages, emergency procedures, safety procedures, record keeping, and more.”36

Countermeasures

Mitigation measures to counteract the identified vulnerabilities of an asset to a threat may consist of security systems and equipment (see Chapter 5), fire life safety systems and equipment (see Chapter 6), security personnel (see Chapter 7), security policies and procedures (see the next section, “Security Programs”), and emergency management (see the later section, “Emergency Planning”). These countermeasures need to be looked at in terms of security design. “Security design involves the systematic integration of design, technology, and operation…. The process of designing security into architecture is known as Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED).”37 As mentioned previously, the key to selecting appropriate countermeasures for a particular facility is for a risk assessment to be conducted. (See Chapter 4.)

According to Kaminsky,

Though hotels and motels have a duty to provide security, innkeepers cannot prevent all crimes from occurring on their premises, despite their best efforts. Neither are they ensurers of the safety of people on their premises. If there is adequate lighting, working locks, properly trained and deployed security officers, video surveillance, and other security measures or some combination of these in place, the chances of a favorable defense verdict in a premises security♦ case are significantly increased. On the other hand, if any of these security measures are lacking or improperly implemented, the chances of an adverse outcome are heightened.38

Because fire is a risk in high-rise buildings, the following is noted regarding their fire protection features: hotel buildings that have properly designed, installed, operated, tested, and maintained automatic fire detection and suppression systems and other fire protection features—automatic closing fire doors for compartmentation and maintenance of the integrity of occupant escape routes and automatic smoke control systems to restrict the spread of smoke—do have the necessary early warning systems to quickly detect fires and warn occupants (including guests and visitors) of their presence; they also have the necessary automated sprinkler systems to quickly extinguish a fire in its early stages. One of the key issues here is the presence or absence of sprinklers.

In the study mentioned in the previous section, “Threats,” Hall commented on fire protection in high-rise buildings by stating,

In several instances, the value of these fire protection features [i.e., automatic extinguishing systems (primarily sprinklers), fire detection equipment, and fire-resistive construction] may be seen clearly in a statistical analysis of 1994–1998 loss per fire averages, with and without the protection. For high-rise buildings, automatic extinguishing systems are associated with a reduction of at least 88% in the rate of deaths per 1,000 fires for each of the three property classes (excluding office buildings, which had no deaths recorded in NFIRS [National Fire Incident Reporting System] in high-rise buildings) and at least 44% in the average dollar loss per fire for each of the four property classes….

Automatic extinguishing systems and fire detection equipment and the compartmentation features associated with fire-resistive construction all contribute to fire protection by helping to keep fires small, with extinguishing and construction doing so directly and detection doing so by providing early warning that can lead to earlier manual suppression.39

Security Programs

Security programs for hotels and for individual guests and patrons involve policies, rules and regulations, and procedures designed “to prevent unauthorized persons from entering, to prevent the unauthorized removal of property, and to prevent crime, violence, and other disruptive behavior.”40 Security's overall purpose is to protect life and property. “Because hotels offer such diversity of facilities and activities, no one security program will fit all properties. The security program must be designed to fit the needs and characteristics of the individual hotel. While crime is not always preventable, certain policies and procedures, properly implemented, may deter or discourage criminal activity.”41 “Every establishment has to find the right balance for its environment—weighing the benefits of security against the extent to which each measure will inconvenience guests.”42

Hotel Building Access Control

There are many different people who may, at any one time, wish to enter a hotel building. They include hotel owners and management staff, hotel contractors (such as elevator technicians and engineering, maintenance, security, janitorial, and parking personnel), guests, visitors, salespersons, tradespeople (including construction workers, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, gardeners, telecommunications repair persons, persons replenishing vending machines, and others who service equipment within the hotel), building inspectors, couriers, delivery persons, solicitors,♦ sightseers, people who are lost, vagrants or homeless people, mentally disturbed individuals, vandals, suicidal persons, protestors, and daredevils. There may also be others who try to enter hotel parking areas, retail shops, restaurants, cocktail lounges, health clubs, business centers, recreational facilities, gyms, exercise rooms, function rooms, meeting rooms, or an individual guest room, with the sole purpose of committing a crime.

It is primarily the hotel owner and operator who determine the access control measures for this wide spectrum of persons. These measures aim to screen out unwanted persons or intruders and at the same time provide a minimum of inconvenience to hotel guests and legitimate visitors. Varying degrees of access control can be achieved using security staff—in some hotels known as a security officer, a security guard, a doorman, a concierge, or by another title that differs according to the respective duties and responsibilities—and various security measures.

Building access controls include vehicle access to parking lots, garages, and loading dock/shipping and receiving areas; pedestrian access to building lobbies, elevator lobbies, and passenger and freight/service elevators; and access routes to retail spaces, restaurants, promenades, mezzanines, atria, and maintenance areas. Measures for controlling access to these areas vary from hotel to hotel, depending on the hotel management's policy, but generally they incorporate some or all of those described in the following sections.

Parking of Hotel Guest and Patron Vehicles

Handling of hotel guest and patron vehicles will vary from hotel to hotel and will often include the following:

• 1.A hotel valet or parking attendant stationed at the front entrance of the hotel to take control of hotel guest and patron vehicles and park them in a parking structure located adjacent to or underneath the hotel or in a surface parking lot outside of the hotel.
• 2.
  Hotel guests and patrons self-park their vehicles in a parking structure located adjacent to or underneath the hotel or in a surface parking lot outside of the hotel. Either

  • a.
    there are no controls on the entry of vehicles to structures (apart from vehicle height restrictions at the point of entry to any structure). Many hotels allow such free access. Some require the guests, once they have registered at the reception desk, to display a sheet of paper, placard or sign on their vehicle dash indicating their authorization to park, or
  • b.
    a ticket (imprinted with the date and time of entry) is dispensed by a machine at the point of entry, which when withdrawn from the control unit automatically opens an entry gate or raises a gate arm. (There will be vehicle height restrictions at the point of entry to any structure.) When exiting a controlled-access parking structure or lot, the driver may be required to make a monetary payment, to present a hotel-validated ticket to a parking attendant, to present the ticket to a pay-on-exit machine and either pay in cash or with a credit card, or to present a token issued by the hotel to a controller that can operate the parking exit barrier.
  • c.
    the guest room electronic access card provided to guests when they check into the hotel also provides access for their vehicle to the hotel parking areas (both for ingress and egress).

Parking of Hotel Staff and Vendor Vehicles

Requiring hotel staff, vendors, and other hotel workers to park in designated safe areas far from the hotel building is a sound security policy. Adherence to this rule frees up available parking spaces closer to the hotel for hotel guests and patrons to use. Not only is this appropriate from a customer service standpoint, but it also keeps hotel staff from parking in specific areas—such as near hotel loading dock/shipping and receiving areas, kitchens, food and alcohol storage areas, and building stairwells—and makes it more difficult (or at least increases the chance of detection) for hotel staff to carry unauthorized items from the hotel to a parked vehicle.

Vehicle Access to Loading Dock/Shipping and Receiving Areas

Vehicles entering loading dock/shipping and receiving areas either may do so at will and park at whatever loading bays or docks are available, or they may be permitted to enter and be directed to park in certain areas by a loading dock attendant who will then supervise subsequent loading or unloading. Also, docks that are normally unattended may have an intercom or buzzer system, possibly in conjunction with closed-circuit television (CCTV), to allow drivers to remotely summon hotel staff for assistance.

For security purposes, the dock attendant normally will maintain a log or record of the vehicle license plate number, the driver's name and company, the time in, and the time out. Depending on building policy, vehicle keys may remain in the vehicle or be given to the dock attendant for safekeeping and to permit the attendant to move the vehicle if necessary.

The activity of drivers and delivery persons usually will be confined to the loading dock/shipping and receiving areas, unless they need to proceed into the hotel for deliveries or pickups. For this reason, rest areas, toilet facilities, and pay phones may be provided in these areas. If drivers and delivery persons enter the hotel, they are usually required to notify the dock attendant of the specific area they will be visiting and the approximate duration of their stay. They may also be issued special identification badges and required to leave some form of personal identification (such as a driver's license) with the attendant.

Pedestrian Access to Hotels

Security officers or doormen are often present at a larger hotel's main entrances (for major facilities they will be present 24 hours per day, 7 days per week). These individuals (and others such as bellhops♦ and valet parking attendants) can observe both incoming and outgoing pedestrian traffic and assist hotel guests, patrons, and visitors with information and directions. (Some smaller hotels may rely on hotel reception staff to monitor pedestrian traffic at the hotel's main entrance, if visibility affords it. Such surveillance is not always reliable because staff may be distracted when carrying out other reception duties such as handling guests, answering telephones, etc.) They can also direct persons delivering or picking up items to the appropriate hotel service entrances, assist other legitimate hotel users, and, by being trained observers and asking probing questions, they can help screen out intruders who have no legitimate reason for entering the premises.

During Normal Business Hours

During business hours (or at least during daytime hours, 7 days per week), pedestrians entering hotel buildings may simply enter the facility at will and proceed to whatever area they desire, including freely using elevators to access guest room floors, or they may be asked to submit to some form of credentialing process before♦♦ they are permitted to enter the hotel and proceed to interior locations (such as guest room floors, penthouse♦ or presidential suites, concierge floors;♦♦ and recreational facilities, function rooms, dining areas, and restaurants). Sometimes the process will involve the hotel guests being required to use their room access cards either on the elevator bank wall or at an elevator kiosk before proceeding to an elevator car (as is the case with destination dispatch elevators) or inside the elevator car itself to access their floors or a specific location.

After Normal Business Hours

After hours (or at least from early to late evening until the next morning, 7 days per week), the procedures may vary. Some hotels may lock all entrances except the main entrance door(s). For entry to interior areas of the hotel, some hotels do not control access to guest floors during normal business hours but do require it after hours. Hotel guests may be required to use their room access cards either on the elevator bank wall or at an elevator kiosk before proceeding to an elevator car (as is the case with destination dispatch elevators) or inside the elevator car itself to access their floors or a specific location; or for hotels that do not have card-access controlled elevators, a temporary kiosk may be set up at the entrance to each guest elevator lobby, and a security officer or a doorman requires guests to produce their room access cards before proceeding to use the elevators.

The degree of access control imposed by a hotel determines the percentage of unwanted persons successfully screened out. “The security program should be designed just tight enough to screen out as many intruders as it takes to reduce problems to the level that can be accepted. This means that a useful security program will rarely screen out all intruders.”43 Because hotels desire to create a warm, welcoming atmosphere, often access control measures will not be tight due to the fear of driving away guests, patrons, and legitimate users of the hotel's facilities.

Right to Pass Signs or Plates

Signs or sidewalk plates, generally located outside the hotel, may state the following:

“RIGHT TO PASS BY PERMISSION, AND SUBJECT TO CONTROL, OF OWNERS” or “PERMISSION TO PASS REVOCABLE AT ANY TIME.”

If a person who does not have a legitimate reason for being in the hotel is discovered, then the hotel owner, manager, or agent acting on behalf of the hotel may revoke the person's right to remain. Due to the limited authority of security staff, “any activities which limit the freedom of movement of any person or persons in the lodging facility be undertaken by the property's staff with the utmost discretion. Such actions should always be reasonable and appropriate.”44 As Ellis and Stipanuk further cautioned,

Unauthorized or undesirable persons (as determined by management for each individual property) should be discouraged from visiting the property, but again, extreme discretion and tact should be used. When deciding whether to evict persons from the premises, great care should be taken to react to what they actually do as opposed to who they are or seem to be. For example, persons suspected of being prostitutes should be evicted with great care. It can be a costly and embarrassing error to question the character or reputation of an individual. Such questioning, if unfounded, can serve as basis for legal action for slander.♦ The eviction of persons from public space (such as the lobby and any restaurants) is governed by laws applicable to places of public accommodation. Management should review the statutes applicable to its location.

On the other hand, guestrooms, and guest corridors are not deemed open to the public. No one other than guests, legitimate visitors of guests, and the property's employees should be in these areas. The normal laws of trespass apply in these areas and should be consulted. If employees see a suspicious person on a floor or in an elevator, they have the right to ask if he or she is a guest or a visitor. They can also ask to see the person's room key [or a keycard] or accompany the person to the room he or she intends to visit. Unauthorized persons may be asked to leave the property and warned not to return.45

After being told to depart the premises, those who refuse to leave may be subject to arrest by law enforcement. Also, anyone reentering a hotel after having been warned that he or she is not authorized to enter may be treated as a trespasser. These actions should be thoroughly documented.

Stairwell Access

Doors leading to stairwell doors are unlocked from the floor side (as required by life safety codes as a means of egress during an emergency) and are also usually unlocked from the stairwell side leading onto the floor, including on all guest room floors (with the possible exceptions of the concierge floor and hotel service floors).

Access to Maintenance and Storage Areas

Access to maintenance areas (mechanical rooms and floors, air-conditioning rooms, telecommunications and utilities access points, and elevator machine rooms), storage closets, and areas under construction or renovation usually will be tight. Depending on hotel policy, persons accessing these areas may be logged in and out, required to wear special identification badges, given keys (although issuing keys to vendors or visitors can be a security risk) or an access card (if the card is not returned, it can be immediately deactivated) to a particular area, or provided an escort. Some contractors servicing certain types of equipment in specific hotel areas may be permitted to install their own locking devices at access points leading to this equipment (see further comments in the “Key Points to Consider” section presented later in this chapter). Main electrical switchgear and power transformer rooms are usually deemed such a life safety risk that no hotel personnel are issued keys to these areas.

Access to Guest Rooms

On checking into many hotels and providing appropriate photo identification, a guest is often given a paper folder containing an electronic access card♦ that can be presented to a card reader located on the entrance door to the guest's room or suite. This card is programmed with its own unique identification number and is valid only for the scheduled period of stay. Presenting of a valid card to the door reader will permit entry and record each individual transaction. (Each individual card reader is usually battery powered and will continue to operate during a power failure.)

The access card does not have the guest's room number recorded on it. Hand written inside the folder is the guest's room number, plus possibly some simple security and safety information printed on the folder. “The guest should be reminded to keep the room number identifier separate from the key or keycard or the identification of the keycard will be compromised.”46 Unless the guest is visually impaired, the staff checking in the guest usually does not speak the room number out loud. This is done to ensure that no one else in close proximity can hear the conversation and thereby know where the guest will be staying. (A guest's room number should never be revealed to outsiders other than the guest.♦♦ ) If the hotel has its elevators on access control, a guest can present this same card to the elevator system to gain access to the floor on which her or his room is located.

If there is a problem using an access card, the guest loses their card, or the guest inadvertently leaves their card in their room when they exit the room, the guest can speak to any available hotel security staff or request housekeeping staff to contact hotel security, use a house telephone (usually located on guest floors in each elevator lobby) or a mobile telephone to contact the lobby reception desk, or return in person to the front reception desk. If the guest goes to the reception desk with their photo identification, hotel reception staff can simply program another card for the guest. If the guest has left their personal identification in their room, hotel security or other hotel staff can accompany the person to the room in question, use their own access card to permit the guest entry to the room, and observe the guest retrieving their identification for confirmation of identity. In the case of the guest having left their access card in the room, the guest can then retrieve it; in the case where the card is not working properly, or has been lost, a replacement card can be made for the guest by the hotel.

For security reasons, most hotel access cards will display no identifying marks (such as the hotel's trademark, its name, or its address) that indicate where it might be used. Then, if a card is lost, there are no identifiers to indicate from which hotel it came. If used with an insertion or a swipe-type card reader, there may be an arrow depicting the correct way to insert or swipe the card (or other simple step-by-step instructions on its use). An advantage of an electronic access card is that if it is missing (either lost or stolen) or when a guest leaves the hotel, the card can be immediately deactivated at a hotel computer without the need to retrieve the card itself. (Some hotels allow guests to keep the card as a memento of their stay. However, if the card does not contain identifying information, then much of the appeal for keeping the card is diminished.) Regarding the value of access card–controlled door locks, Lauer stated,

Since the introduction of the recodable electronic door lock in the late 1970's, hotel security has been virtually transformed. The focus at the time of inception was increased guest security, but the benefit to the property was quickly realized. Hotel security experts, along with media pundits, the courts, and the insurance industry all agree—keycard locks, which can be easily changed so that every guest gets a new key, are the best way to boost security….

Employee access control was one of the first system enhancements to increase the level of internal technology. In order for a property to be maintained efficiently, hotel personnel require their own means of entry to rooms in which they must perform daily routines or tasks. In the past, distribution of conventional keys to housekeepers, room service attendants, and maintenance personnel compromised guest belongings and increased the liability of the hotel. In some instances of theft, the victim was often the hotel (where even the negligent customer is king), and claims went unchallenged. The “burden of proof” is welcome by a hotel equipped with modern electronic locks, for the actual lock serves as a log, monitoring and recording up to 1,000 entries (about 100 days worth). Many reputations have been restored and many a thankful employee has been cleared of suspicion due to the success of these products. Employee key cards can be coded to allow access only to their assigned units of responsibility and only during the hours of their shift. Knowledge of these system capabilities may also serve as a deterrent to those less ethical.47

In the case of a reported theft from a guest's room, the event history of cards used to enter the room and when entries occurred can be determined by interrogating♦ the lock at the door itself (using a small hand-held device); or if the lock uses a hardwired or a wireless system,♦♦ this information can be determined with the use of an online central computer at the front reception desk or the security command center, eliminating the need to go to each individual lock. This information can be vital in such an investigation, particularly if there were no visible signs of a forced entry.48 Technology is also available to determine whether a door was opened from the inside of the room (such a feature is invaluable in investigations to determine when a door was opened and whether an access card was used in the process).

For hotels that do not have a guest room locking system connected to a central computer, when a guest checks out of their room the access card to that room usually remains active until the next guest assigned to that room presents their card to the door reader or the scheduled time of stay expires.♦ When the next guest to that room uses their card it will automatically delete the previous guest's access privileges. Therefore, until the new guest arrives, the possibility exists that the previous guest could continue to access their room until their scheduled time of stay expires. This issue does not exist with a centralized, online computer-controlled card system since the card's access privileges can be immediately deleted at the reception desk's central computer when the guest checks out.

Guest Room Security

In addition to completely closing the door when entering the hotel room (and leaving it closed♦♦ while in the room), guests may improve their room security by engaging any secondary locking mechanism, such as a deadbolt lock,♦♦♦ a door swing arm security restraint, or a safety chain. Also, if there is a connecting room, guests should check that the door leading to it is locked.

It is important that guests never open their doors for anyone that they do not know personally or for room service or hotel maintenance that they did not request, even if the person is wearing a name tag, as most hotel employees are required to do. Any guest who is in any doubt as to the identity of anyone requesting entry should immediately telephone the hotel reception desk to report the matter or to verify the identity of the person in question and determine the purpose for allowing the person to enter the room.

In many hotel guest rooms, the main entrance door is equipped with a conventional door viewer (sometimes called a view port)♦♦♦♦ to provide a clear view of the other side of the door (using a hollow end or peephole to look through and a lens at the other end to give a wide viewing angle) and of anyone requesting entry. (Some hotels have a small box housing the view port. A printed sign informs the guest to “LIFT THE LEVER FOR VIEWING. VIEW THE CALLER BEFORE OPENING THE DOOR.”) Also, digital door viewers are available. Such a device “includes an LCD monitor that mounts on the inside of the guest room door with a digital camera on the outside to provide a clear and effortless view.”49 The guest should use these viewing devices to see the person requesting entry before granting or denying access.

If a hotel guest in-room safe is provided, a guest should secure in it any valuables (such as money, credit cards, jewelry, documents, airline tickets, clothing, or other items of considerable value, and, if the safe is large enough, any laptop computer). If the safe uses a security key that can be removed from the safe only after the door is closed and locked, the guest should keep the key safely in her or his possession at all times. If the safe has a digital keypad system, the guest should record the combination selected for the safe but make sure not to leave it lying around in the room.

If no guest in-room safe is available, the guest should consider using any safe deposit boxes located at the hotel's main reception desk. (If neither is available and the hotel offers to take possession of valuables, the guest should request to see where the items are being secured. If there is a concern they are not being adequately protected, the guest should not leave such items in the hotel's possession.♦ )

If the guest decides to leave valuable items in the room, they should be secured in the room (for example, the guest can anchor a laptop with an appropriate cable and lock it to an immovable room fixture♦♦ ) or hidden from view as much as possible (such items are still at considerable risk for an experienced thief to search for and find, even if extremely well hidden). Also, leaving valuable items in vehicles parked in the hotel's parking garage is a risk. If a guest does so, these items should always be out of sight and secured in the vehicle's trunk (boot) or locked glove box compartment. Using a valet service may potentially increase the chance of such items being taken from the vehicle.

Guests should familiarize themselves with the telephone in their guest rooms to ensure they know how to dial the main reception desk or any other emergency services. They should also pay attention to security and safety information—usually in the form of listed security and safety awareness tips—provided to them at check-in (for example, printed on the paper folder containing the room key or keycard), contained in any guest information book or brochure provided in the guest room, posted on the back of the guest room main entrance door (see Figure 10–2) (including information on steps to take if a fire emergency occurs, including a plan depicting the emergency exits on the floor in question and possibly the location of manual fire alarm stations on the floor), or displayed in a program on any hotel television channel. Guests can play an important part in any hotel security and life safety program by promptly reporting things such as suspicious persons♦♦♦ or activities, safety hazards, or the smell of smoke to hotel management and security staff.

As part of guest room security, when a hotel operator receives a call from an outside telephone line or an internal house phone requesting connection to a guest room, the operator should never forward such a call unless the caller is able to provide the guest's name and, depending on hotel policy, possibly the guest's room number.

The hotel operator and receptionists should never reveal the room number of a guest to anyone other than the guest. As mentioned previously, when checking in a guest and handing the person the guest room access card, the receptionist should never loudly announce the room number (to prevent someone standing close by from hearing this information). Instead they should speak softly or indicate the room number by pointing to it written on the folder containing the card.♦

When leaving the room, the guest should make sure any exterior sliding glass doors and all windows are closed and locked and should engage any additional devices (such as added locking mechanisms or material that can be placed in the channel in which a sliding door or window is designed to glide along) that limit the distance the door(s) or the window(s) can open; and on exiting the hotel room door, the guest should make sure it is completely closed and locked, testing it by trying to open it again without using a key or access card (some opportunists may methodically walk hotel corridors to locate an unsecured room; such activity may be for criminal purposes or simply to find a vacant room to use). Also, when not in the room, leaving the “Do Not Disturb” notice on the door and a television set on may be a deterrent to a would-be-thief. While out of the room, guests should keep the room access card in their possession at all times, particularly if it is housed in a paper wallet on which the room number is written. On leaving the room, guests should make sure they take the room access card with them.

When returning to the hotel after dark, guests consciously pay attention to their surroundings, keep to well-lighted areas, and use the main entrance of the hotel.50

High-Profile VIP Guests

According to Ellis and Stipanuk,

VIP [very important person] guests may require additional security personnel. Some well-known figures may wish to keep a very low profile, and all staff [hotel management, security, front desk, room service, housekeeping, and engineering] should be instructed on how to appropriately respond to inquiring media and the general public. If the guest has a personal security staff, armed or otherwise, arrangements and accommodations may need to be made by the property and the local police. If the individual is controversial, the property may wish to request the assistance of the local police … or some other authority. Properties expecting the arrival of a controversial guest may also want to review emergency evacuation and bomb threat procedures with their employees before the guest arrives.51

Intoxicated Guests and Patrons

According to Beaudry,

Alcohol liability problems generally do not involve security staff initially, for it is usually food and beverage department employees such as bartenders, waitresses, and managers who are directly in control of and responsible for alcohol consumption. Security does have a function to perform, however, in helping to prevent intoxicated patrons from driving a vehicle or becoming injured while walking around the hotel property. Not all alcohol liability cases are limited to motor vehicle accidents. Guests can become injured by falling down due to intoxication in an otherwise safe area. Unfortunately, in such cases the innkeeper is not able to claim the defense that it was the guest's intoxication that caused the injury, if it was the innkeeper who allowed the individual to get drunk in the first place.

The greatest risk of alcohol liability arises when the guest attempts to leave the hotel and drive a car. If a security officer is called for assistance in such circumstances, everything possible should be done to discourage the guest from driving. A hotel's management may even want to consider the extreme measures of refusing to return the guest's keys or calling the local police department. This action may cause other problems (such as difficulties regarding the appropriateness of refusing to give a person back his or her property), but the hotel operator must weigh the risks and decide on the safest option.52

Guest Evictions

According to Beaudry,

The hotel may make reasonable regulations governing the conduct of guests, provided such regulations are applied to all persons, without discrimination. These regulations can be designed to prevent immorality, drunkenness, or any form of willful misconduct, e.g., loud obnoxious behavior,♦ drug activity, etc., that may offend other guests, may bring the hotel into disrepute, or may be inconsistent with the generally recognized properties of life. The hotel has the right to evict any guest who willfully violates these rules….

Obviously, the eviction must be done in a reasonable manner. If guests refuse to leave the hotel after their attention has been called to the violation and they have been requested to leave and given a reasonable opportunity to do so, the hotel may forcibly evict them. The hotel may use only such force as is reasonably necessary to accomplish this goal. Management personnel and security officers should be carefully instructed on this point and the hotel should obtain the assistance of the local police [if required].

When a hotel guest becomes ill with a contagious disease, the hotel management, after notifying the guest that he or she must leave, has the right to remove the guest in a careful manner and at an appropriate time to a hospital or other place of safety, provided this does not imperil the guest's life. As a practical matter, however, it is preferable to consult with an attorney and report these matters to the proper local authorities. Usually the local authorities will take charge and remove the sick guest. The illness of an indigent guest should be reported to the local department of welfare, communicable diseases should be reported to the local health authorities, and psychiatric cases should be reported to police.53

Escorts of Hotel Users

In hotels, people may be escorted for a variety of reasons. It may be to protect individuals or the property that they are carrying. It may also be to show a person, unfamiliar with a site or facility, to a particular location.

Escorts to and from the Hotel

Escorts to and from a hotel usually occur after normal business hours. Security staff members generally conduct these escorts. Hotel guests, particularly older residents or females, may request hotel security to escort them to areas of the property such as parking garages. Hotel policy should dictate how, when, and where the escorts are to be conducted.

Escorts within the Hotel

Some guests may require escorts to their rooms, and hotel staff such as cashiers may require escorts to areas where monies are secured. Also, hotel policy may require that persons needing access to certain maintenance spaces and areas under construction or renovation be provided with an escort to accompany them whenever they are in these areas. Building engineering or security staff may be required to provide such escorts.

Some hotels have a list of local and state agencies whose inspectors are authorized to enter, but it is absolutely critical to verify the identification of these individuals and to make hotel management aware of their presence before they are granted entry. It is important to escort anyone claiming to be an inspector while he or she is in the facility.

Property Control

Most hotels allow the free movement of guest's luggage and possessions into and out of the facility. This makes the control of property extremely difficult, if not impossible.

Objectives of a Property Control System

The objectives of a property control system are threefold:54

• • To prevent stolen property or other unauthorized items from leaving. Stolen property may include furniture and furnishings, entertainment equipment, antiques and works of art from hotel guest rooms, function rooms, convention facilities, restaurants, and dining areas; cash and negotiable instruments from reception and restaurant areas, retail shops, and other areas handling such items; computers and printers from administrative offices and business centers; equipment from recreation areas, kitchens, dining areas, restaurants, retail shops, newsstands, entertainment centers, kitchens, and laundries; equipment and exhibits from exhibit areas; and property from inside vehicles parked in the hotel's parking garage.
• • To prevent dangerous items entering. Items such as explosives, illegal drugs, and hazardous materials might easily be secreted on a person, in that person's luggage, or in a vehicle and brought into a hotel.
• • To prevent unnecessary or disruptive delivery traffic. By keeping out misdirected deliveries, unnecessary traffic is avoided. By routing deliveries through proper entrances, such as loading docks and freight/service elevators, disruptive traffic is avoided and the guest elevators are protected against damage from hand trucks and bulky crates.

The use of property control systems for guests and patrons is usually not appropriate in the hotel setting.♦ However, guests and patrons may hand over certain property to hotel staff for temporary safe keeping (for example, items placed in safe deposit boxes, coats and hats checked in at restaurants, and luggage stored after a guest has checked out of the hotel but has not yet left the facility). Also, during special events, such as those involving valuable exhibits, strict property removal control may be required to protect the exhibits; and the hotel, particularly a larger one, may require hotel staff and workers to enter and leave the hotel through an employee entrance and be subject to periodic inspections of bags, containers, and packages. However, it is unusual for vehicles, even those entering under-building hotel parking garages and loading dock areas, to be inspected.

Good housekeeping should always be practiced for trash (rubbish) storage, trash compacting, and dumpster areas. Hotel staff, including security and housekeeping staff, should be alert for objects, items, materials, or parcels that look out of place or suspicious, and for large items being removed from the facility.

Couriers and Delivery Persons

Hotels receive deliveries of assorted items for guests (for example, delayed airline luggage). Also, couriers sometimes come to a hotel to pick up packages and sundry other items. The entry of delivery persons and couriers needs to be strictly controlled. Depending on the size of the hotel, such items will be handled inside the hotel by bellhops and possibly a business center where shipping and receiving services are offered. Like any well-run operation, these programs need to be meticulously documented to provide an audit trail to track deliveries and pickups and ensure that these tasks are being done in a timely manner.

Special Exhibits

Special events where exhibits of various items, some of which may be of high value, that are held in the hotel require special security measures. When the exhibitors are present, responsibility for these items is generally theirs. However, when the exhibition hall or room is closed (and particularly if the exhibits are left overnight), the exhibitors will need to make special arrangements, in conjunction with hotel management, to protect these items. Protective measures may involve the use of hotel security or contract security staff, video surveillance, or intrusion detection systems in the area where the exhibits are located. It is critical that all arrangements be thoroughly documented, contracts and insurance policies be in place, and that there is a clear understanding of any liability burdens that the hotel may be assuming while the exhibits are in the hotel, including the time periods when the exhibition is being set up or dismantled.

Construction and Remodel Activities

When a hotel is being constructed or remodeled, the security department needs to be a critical part of the operation. It is particularly important that access control measures are in place to prevent the unauthorized removal of property from the hotel, including hotel fixtures and equipment.

Lost and Found Property

Handling lost and found property is an important part of an effective security program. Most people can recall the anguish they felt on discovering that a valuable personal possession or business item was missing. Likewise, one may remember the exhilaration at being contacted and informed that the missing property had been found and was available for pickup.

If property is lost in a hotel and is subsequently found and handed to hotel staff, the item should be kept in a secure place (including a safe deposit box for items such as cash, credit cards, traveler's checks, jewelry, etc.) and, if possible, expeditiously returned to its rightful owner. This can considerably enhance the trust and confidence that hotel guests and patrons will have in the hotel's operations. Just the opposite will be true if a guest or patron learns that the found item was handed to hotel security and was then lost or went missing.

Lost and Found Property Log

Hotel staff should maintain a list of lost and found items in a lost and found property log. The log should contain details such as the following:

• •A brief description of the property, including any serial or asset tag numbers
• •The date, time, and place the property was lost or found
• •The identity of, and means to contact, the person who lost or found the property
• •If the property is claimed, the identity of, and means to contact, the claimant and the signature of the person who received the property
• •The names of the person who took the report of the lost property, logged in the found item, or handled the return of the property to its rightful owner

Handing Over to Local Authorities

If the lost property is particularly valuable or sensitive, it may be necessary for the local law enforcement agency to be contacted; if the property is subsequently handed over to local authorities, this fact, including the identity of the receiving law enforcement officer, should be noted. A receipt for the property should be obtained. Local and state laws often determine the handling of lost property.♦

Some jurisdictions allow found property, when its owner is unknown and its value is below a certain amount, to be distributed to local charitable organizations. Others, after a certain waiting period, auction the property or allow the finder to assume ownership of it.

Handling Property of Sick, Injured, or Deceased Guests

If a guest staying alone at the hotel is sick or injured and needs to be transported for medical help or dies while on the premises, a member of the hotel's staff, in the presence of another staff member, will need to itemize the guest's personal property and store it in a safe location until the guest or an authorized representative can take possession of it. Of course, the handling of a deceased guest's property will depend on whether law enforcement is involved as part of a criminal investigation. In this case, if a suspicious death has occurred in the guest room, the room may be considered a crime scene that needs to be protected (see a discussion of crime scenes in Appendix 9–2 on the CD-ROM provided with this book). If a similar type of death occurs in a public area, the scene will need to be protected accordingly.

Housekeeping Operations

Housekeeping staff (who wear uniforms and usually name or photograph identification cards) are assigned to clean and replenish the supplies of designated guest rooms on a floor. Because they often work alone in guest rooms there is the opportunity for them to steal a guest's property or copy information from confidential documents or a laptop computer or other electronic media left in the room.

Because housekeeping staff are assigned rooms, this can make investigations involving housekeeping staff easier as management will know which housekeeper handled which rooms on a particular day. In itself, this can be a strong deterrent to dishonest behavior.

Housekeeping Staff Screening

During the hiring process, housekeeping staff should be carefully screened, including conducting a thorough background investigation. As part of preemployment or preassignment agreements, housekeeping staff may be asked to submit to a visual inspection of any items they are carrying to and from work—lunch pails, bags, backpacks, packages, and so on. The frequency of the inspections can be established as part of the agreement: inspections may be conducted every time the employee enters or leaves the hotel, at random, or only with cause.

Housekeeping supervisors or hotel security staff members usually conduct such inspections. They are visual only, and employees are requested to open appropriate items themselves. Under no circumstances does the inspecting person touch the items being inspected or attempt to inspect any part of the employee's person or clothing. All persons have a legal right and expectation of privacy, so items such as purses will be subject to inspection only under special circumstances, the nature of which should be established in writing beforehand.

Important Part of Security

The housekeeping staff constitutes an important part of a hotel's security program.♦ Some of the ways these employees can impact security are as follows:

• 1.When cleaning guest rooms, either taking their cleaning and supplies cart inside the room and locking the room door while servicing the room, or leaving the room entrance door open, with the cart immediately outside to partially block the entrance. They should not allow persons, other than the room guest, to enter the room while they are working (unless the room guest authorizes others to enter).
• 2.Recognizing potential security hazards (such as malfunctioning door locking mechanisms) and safety hazards (such as potential slip-and-fall hazards like a water leak, broken flooring, slippery floor mats or damaged carpeting).
• 3.Being alert for people who act in a suspicious manner (including guests who decline regular housekeeping service, particularly for more than one day), as well as for objects, items, materials or parcels that look out of place or suspicious—including plastic tubes, glass containers, and supplies of household chemicals—and strong odors that may indicate a clandestine drug laboratory.
• 4.Reporting missing signs and notices displaying security and safety information and hotel liability notices that should be securely attached to the back of guest room doors, and similar information contained in guest information books or brochures provided in the guest rooms.

Key and Electronic Access Card Control

In hotel buildings, keys and electronic access cards to various parts of the facility are under the control of hotel management and departments that include security, engineering, and housekeeping. Hotel management personnel obviously need to have access to all areas of the hotel they manage. Depending on how the hotel is managed and how security staff is utilized, security personnel also will need access to certain areas. Building engineers, because of the nature of their work, need access to virtually all areas, including guest rooms. Housekeeping personnel will need access to guest rooms and rooms where cleaning and supplies are kept. Depending on the size of the hotel and the services provided, various other department heads, including those overseeing function rooms, business and conference centers, restaurants, kitchens, and recreational facilities, will need keys and access cards pertaining to their areas of responsibility.♦♦ Also, during special circumstances (such as during medical emergencies or when a guest has died), there will be the need for designated hotel personnel (possibly security and engineering or hotel management staff) to override the locking systems to enter a guest room.

Key Points to Consider♦

Keys and access cards should be issued only to those persons who can be entrusted with them and who have an absolute need for them. The status a person may feel by possessing certain keys and access cards should not enter into the decision-making process.

Most lodging properties use at least three levels of keying. These levels typically include emergency keys, master keys, and guestroom keys. The emergency key opens all guestroom doors, even when they are double locked. It can be used, for example, to enter a room when the guest needs aid and is unable to reach or open the door. The emergency key should be highly protected and its use strictly controlled and recorded; it should never leave the property. One procedure for emergency keys is to have them locked in a safe or safe deposit box [or in a locked or sealed key cabinet with the cabinet's key, lock code, access card, or replacement seal in strict custody] and signed out by the individual needing one. The log should be dated and signed by the individual taking the key.

A master key opens all guestrooms that are not double locked. Depending upon the need, the master key or keycard [access card] may be further established as a section master, a floor master, or a grand master. For example the section master may be used by a housekeeping supervisor who is providing a quality check on service of the room by the room attendant. If it is more practical for the entire floor to be supervised by one person, that individual would be provided with a floor master. The executive housekeeper and assistant housekeeper would have a grand master, permitting access to any guestroom. Similarly, the management should establish protocol on use of these levels of master keys or keycards [access cards] for engineering and maintenance, room service, mini-bar replenishment and service, front and bell service, [technology personnel,♦♦] and security….

The guestroom key opens a single guestroom if the door is not double locked. Guestroom keys should be controlled by front desk personnel, who should always make sure the person receiving the guestroom key is the guest registered for that room. Appropriate identification should always be requested. An effort should be made to retrieve keys from guests when they check out. For the convenience of, and as a reminder to, the guest, consider having well-secured♦ key return boxes located in the lobby, at exit points of the hotel or motel, and in courtesy vehicles….

Whenever there is any known or suspected compromise of any metal keys, a loss or theft, or an unauthorized entry by key, the affected lock(s) should be changed or rotated to another portion of the property. When master keys or emergency keys are involved, re-keying the entire area should be considered.55

Keys and access cards issued to the hotel staff should never be permitted to leave the hotel. They should be passed from shift to shift, and a receipt should be recorded each time they change hands. All personnel understand the importance of not permitting keys and access cards to be compromised.

Mobile Patrols

Mobile patrols may be conducted in hotels for a variety of security and fire life safety purposes. “Guards [security officers] are typically highly visible thus offering something of a deterrent effect and at the same time imparting a sense of security to the [hotel's guests, patrons,] and visitors.”56 Patrolling increases this visibility. Patrols can also be used to note and quickly address anything significant or unusual affecting security or fire life safety. After conducting a risk assessment (as described in Chapter 4), the purpose, frequency, and routing of patrols can be determined by hotel management and the security department (and, if special circumstances warrant, with the cooperation of local authorities) and then carried out and thoroughly documented.

When and Where?

Patrols by security staff in hotel buildings may occur as follows:

• •Continuously throughout all common areas (including hotel lobbies, retail arcades,♦♦ and other areas that hotel guests and visitors can freely access); restaurant, recreation facilities (including swimming pool and spa areas), meeting room, and function areas; building stairwells; maintenance areas (including shipping and receiving areas, rubbish/trash disposal areas, and other areas as deemed necessary by the hotel) and guest room floors to report obstructions (particularly those blocking emergency egress routes), fire hazards, broken glass, missing equipment (such as portable fire extinguishers), water or gas leaks, wet floors, holes, defects in floor coverings, tiles missing, unsecured areas, malfunctioning lighting equipment, doors left unlocked or not completely closed, signs of forced entry, unauthorized and suspicious persons (such as persons loitering and possible prostitutes) and inebriated persons, and others (including hotel staff) found in areas in which they would not normally belong, and so on. (On hotel floors, patrol management stations are often installed at each stairwell so that the patrolling officer must traverse the floor to complete the tour.)
• •Depending on a hotel's facilities, patrols may also be conducted of exterior grounds, public parks, and other areas, with times varying according to their operating hours. (Motor vehicles, electric carts, bicycles, tricycles, and personal transporters may be used for patrolling large parking areas with long travel distances.)
• •Continuously in parking garages and lots to deter theft of vehicles and property within them; note parking violations♦ and possibly issue warnings or citations (hotels are often reluctant to issue citations for fear of losing customers); observe vehicle lights or engines left on, leaks from vehicles, or other unusual conditions of parked vehicles; report fire hazards, water or gas leaks, malfunctioning lighting equipment, broken vehicle windows and other signs of forced entry, unauthorized and suspicious persons, and others (including hotel staff) found in areas in which they would not normally belong; and provide for the general safety of guests, patrons, and visitors. (In parking garages, patrol management stations are often installed at each stairwell so that the patrolling officer must traverse the floor in order to complete the tour.)
• •To perform a fire watch when a hotel has exceptional hazards or the fire protection system is impaired.♦♦ A fire watch is “the assignment of a person or persons to an area for the express purpose of notifying the fire department and/or building occupants of an emergency, preventing a fire from occurring, extinguishing small fires, or protecting the public from fire or life safety dangers.”57 It is vital that when such an activity is to be performed that the local fire department or other authority having jurisdiction is consulted.

Patrolling Tips

• •Patrols can be conducted either on foot or using a motor vehicle, an electric cart, a bicycle, a tricycle, or a personal transporter.
• •There should be reliable communication between the patrolling officer and the security department or the supervisor.
• •Whenever possible, routine patrols should be conducted in a random, unpredict-able manner to avoid a fixed pattern or routine that someone planning to commit a crime can observe. Sometimes, an effective tactic is for an officer to “double back,” or retrace steps to a previous location; anyone observing the patrolling officer's movements would usually not expect the officer to return quickly to an area just visited.
• •“Alertness, interest and thoroughness must be displayed. A suspicious mind must be cultivated and anything that appears other than normal must be looked into.”58
• •Using a flashlight or a torch in areas where lighting is poor or nonexistent is extremely useful.
• •Simply applying pressure with the hand on a guest room door will reveal if it is securely closed.
• •“A simple but effective patrol plan should be established in each area. Its efficiency should be regularly checked by means of [patrol management devices],♦ radio or telephone checks at regular intervals, etc. Failure to report, or deviation from described assignments, should immediately be investigated.”59 Patrol management devices “provide the security manager with a consistent record of rounds and occurrences at a facility without the need for human supervision to ensure that rounds are completed as assigned.”60 If an electronic patrol management device is not used, a notebook is very useful for recording observations. (The patrolling officer can carry the notebook, or it can be positioned at designated patrol stations so the officer can record when visiting a particular area.)

As with the hiring of other members of the hotel staff, security personnel should be carefully screened, including being subject to a thorough background investigation. They should also be thoroughly trained in their duties and responsibilities (see Chapter 7 “Selection, Training, Testing, and Supervision of Security Staff” for additional information).

Emergency Planning

For a building owner or manager to effectively manage an incident that constitutes an emergency in a hotel building, it is critical to plan ahead. Before proceeding, it is appropriate to review several key concepts.

Key Concepts

An incident is an “event that has the capacity to lead to human, intangible or physical loss, or a disruption of an organization's operations, services, or functions—which, if not managed, can escalate into an emergency, crisis, or disaster.”61

A disruption is “an event that interrupts normal business, functions, operations, or processes whether anticipated (e.g., hurricane, political unrest) or unanticipated (e.g., a [power] blackout, terror attack, technology failure, or earthquake).”62

An emergency is “an event, actual or imminent, which endangers or threatens to endanger life, property or the environment, and which requires a significant and coordinated response.”63 During an emergency there may be chaotic conditions, particularly if there is a disruption in normal communications.

A crisis is “an unstable condition involving an impending abrupt or significant change that requires urgent attention and action to protect life, assets, property, or the environment.”64

Emergency management (also sometimes known as crisis management) is defined as “the organization and management of resources and responsibilities for dealing with all aspects of emergencies, in particular preparedness [and] response.”♦

A plan is defined as “a scheme or method of acting or proceeding developed in advance.”65

Combining the terms emergency management and a plan can lead to a definition of an emergency management plan ♦♦ as “a scheme or method of acting or proceeding developed in advance for the organization and management of resources and responsibilities for dealing with all aspects of emergencies, in particular preparedness and response.”66

“The objective of an [emergency management plan] should be to allow those responsible for the [facility] during an emergency to focus on the solution of major problems, not to attempt immediately to bring order out of chaos. If all predictable and routine items are considered in the plan, those responsible for actions during an emergency will be able to deal with the unpredictable or unusual situations that will surely develop.”67

According to Groner,

The chaotic and dynamic nature of building emergencies requires an exceedingly rapid assessment of the situation. The timeframe is measured in seconds and minutes, not hours and days. The rapid onset of many events means that the process should be well underway before emergency responders arrive at the building.

Human factors professionals have been actively researching this problem under the generally accepted term of “situation awareness.” Endsley (1988) has provided a well-accepted definition: “The perception of the elements in the environment within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of their meaning and the projection of their status in the near future.”68 As noted in the definition, it is insufficient to understand the momentary status of the situation; projecting its development is of great importance in choosing a strategy to safeguard building occupants.♦

The purpose of an emergency management plan is to help hotel emergency staff in their efforts to achieve situation awareness and make sound decisions to provide for the safety of hotel guests and patrons during building emergencies, such as fire.

The value of emergency planning is not only the emergency management plan itself but also in the development process leading to it and the education of hotel emergency staff that should occur in the process.

How to Develop a Building Emergency Management Plan

The building emergency management plan♦ in Appendix 9–2 (which is on the CD-ROM provided with this book) is a suggested format for developing an emergency management plan for an office building. It includes actions intended to reduce the threat to the life safety of building occupants from emergencies, both fire and non-fire-related, that are likely to occur in a specific building, or in close proximity to it, until the arrival of emergency responders. A hotel could adopt such an emergency plan as part of its effort to develop its own building emergency management plan. However, several critical differences—building emergency staff organization, occupant documentation and training, and evacuation drills—need to be taken into account.

Building Emergency Staff Organization

The building emergency staff organization that will carry out emergency response procedures for a hotel differs from that of an office building. The most obvious difference is that hotels do not have floor response personnel such as floor wardens, stairwell monitors, elevator monitors, search monitors, and disabled/physically impaired assistance monitors. The responsibility for overseeing the safe and orderly evacuation of occupants from a hotel floor resides with hotel staff, including hotel management, security, engineering, and possibly housekeeping staff (the personnel involved will vary according to the size of the hotel, its staffing capabilities, and the time of day or night).

A typical staff organization♦♦ for a high-rise hotel is outlined in Figure 10–1 . This sample depicts the fire safety director as reporting to hotel management. However, it is noted that the authority that has jurisdiction in many cities empowers the fire safety director with full authority to evacuate a building without the need to obtain approval from hotel owners or managers.

Figure 10–1.

Sample hotel building emergency staff organization.

Each unit of the building emergency staff organization has duties and responsibilities that have been developed and tailored to the specific needs of the hotel and to each type of emergency they may be required to handle. These duties and responsibilities should be defined clearly so that there will be a coordinated and effective response to each emergency situation. For example, the duties and responsibilities of hotel management, the building fire safety director,♦♦♦ and the hotel engineering and security staff♦♦♦♦ in handling a fire emergency include ensuring that the fire department has been immediately notified, all occupants (including guests and patrons) in the affected area have been advised of the situation, any necessary evacuation procedures of occupants has begun, a thorough search is made of all affected guest rooms,♦ fire life safety systems are operating under emergency conditions, any investigation or initial suppression of the fire is carried out, and that the fire department and other responding personnel are met on arrival and briefed on the status of the situation. In contrast, during a bomb threat incident, these personnel may be involved in supervising the evacuation of occupants and checking areas, including common areas and guest rooms, where an explosive device may have been placed. In a medical incident, security staff, depending on the hotel's policy and the type of situation, may be required to administer CPR, an AED (automated external defibrillator), or basic first aid before the emergency medical responders arrive.

Occupant Documentation and Training

“Since hotel guests are [primarily] transients, special consideration must be given to the potential threat to their life safety from fire. For example, occupants of the residential portion of a hotel sleep in unfamiliar surroundings and could possibly become disoriented when trying to evacuate under heavy smoke conditions. Likewise, persons in ballrooms, lounges, [casinos,] and restaurants could become disoriented due to low-level lighting, crowd size, and unfamiliarity with evacuation routes.”69 The training of hotel occupants in fire life safety procedures is very different for a hotel than that of office building occupants. Apart from verbal instructions that can be given by meeting organizers at the commencement of a gathering in a function, a meeting room, or a conference center, primarily hotel management relies on documentation and exit signage to communicate safety messages to its guests and visitors.

Security and safety information—including basic security and fire life safety tips—can be provided as follows:

• •When a guest checks in to the hotel (for example, printed on the paper folder containing the room key or keycard; some hotels include a statement that “Upon arrival please notify the Front Desk if you require special evacuation assistance in the event of an emergency”).70
• •Contained in a guest information book or a brochure provided in the guest room.
• •Posted on the back of the guest room main entrance door.♦ This information includes a floor plan with the emergency telephone number; a description of what the hotel fire alarm sounds like (and looks like if strobe lights are available); the layout of the floor including room locations, corridors, elevators, and the nearest fire exits; a “YOU ARE HERE” indicator for the guest's room location; a directional path depicting the direction of travel to each of the nearest fire exits; and the location of manual fire alarm stations and portable fire extinguishers on the floor—see a sample sign in Figure 10–2 .
• •Portrayed in a program routinely broadcast to guests on in-room television channels.
• •Written on decals (for example, those adhered to sliding glass doors♦♦ above the locking mechanism to remind guests to lock the door when sleeping or leaving the room; those warning guests not to place a clothing hanger on any sidewall sprinkler head and thus avoiding damaging it and causing an accidental discharge of water in the room; and “NO SMOKING SIGNS” sometimes posted in guest rooms, particularly on room balconies).
• •Displayed on the guest room door equipped with a conventional door viewer with a printed sign warning the guest to view the caller before opening the door.
• •Displayed on in-car elevator video screens. Such elevator bulletins may, for example, provide information that reminds occupants that in the event the elevator stops running, they should immediately use the elevator emergency communication device to request assistance; or they may be used to post other appropriate emergency notifications.

Figure 10–2.

Sample sign on the back of a hotel guest room door.

^♦The State of California Civil Code Section 1859 and Section 1860 and West's Annotated California Code 1861 were consulted in preparing these statements.

^♦♦“The matter of limiting innkeepers’ liability goes far back in law. A cap on what an innkeeper must pay if travelers lose their belongings came about to protect those who provided shelter to people on the road—a desirable situation in the view of public policy—from being put out of business by visitors who sued after being robbed on the premises. In the Uunited States, every state and territory has a law limiting this liability, and each state requires that notices of this be posted in a particular way…. Many of these limits were set in the last century, and inflation has made them out of date. In the last five years, some legislatures have been pushed by consumers into raising the limits” (Practical Traveler; How Safe Is the Hotel Safe? New York Times Log, by Betsey Wade. March 14, 1999. <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=travel&res=9B0DEFDD103FF937A25750C0A96F958260>; October 17, 2008).

^♦♦♦See “Eevacuation Guidelines” in Appendix 9–3 for other possible items to include in this section.

Some guests, as a fire life safety precaution, on first arriving at their hotel room immediately familiarize themselves by walking to the emergency exits on their floor, in particular noting the route leading to the nearest fire exit. Guests can also play an important part in any hotel life safety program by promptly reporting things such as suspicious persons or activities, safety hazards, or the smell of smoke to hotel management and security staff.

Exit signage (as described in Chapter 6) is also a critical part of the life safety program for hotel occupants. This includes floor evacuation plans that show the building core, perimeter, stairwells, elevators, every wall that faces every exit route, exit routes to the appropriate stairwells, symbols depicting the location of fire equipment and manual fire alarm devices, the floor number, fire department and hotel emergency telephone numbers, what stairwells have roof access, and what the fire alarm looks and sounds like.

Evacuation Drills

Hotels can utilize evacuation drills♦ —commonly called fire drills—to train, instruct, reinforce, and test the preparedness of the hotel emergency staff, but due to the nature of hotel operations, they do not use this training tool for hotel occupants. This adds further weight to the absolute necessity for hotel staff to be always ready to react to an emergency in a competent and professional manner according to predetermined guidelines specified in the hotel's Building Emergency Procedures Manual.

Important Consideration

It is important that as many as possible of those who will be involved in the execution of the emergency management plan participate in the planning process. Those concerned should include the emergency staff of the hotel, the hotel safety committee,♦♦ and possibly public officials (such as those from the local fire and law enforcement agencies) and building management staff from neighboring buildings (with the view to developing mutual aid agreements).♦♦♦ Public officials may require a particular format for the plan itself.

It cannot be stressed enough that the sample format for developing a hotel's Building Emergency Procedures Manual is provided as an example of how a hotel may prepare its plan. Every site and hotel building is different, and emergency plans vary according to local laws and the requirements of the authority that has jurisdiction. It is up to each hotel to develop the emergency management plan most appropriate to its needs.

Summary

• •“Because hotels offer such diversity of facilities and activities, no one security program will fit all properties. The security program must be designed to fit the needs and characteristics of the individual hotel. While crime is not always preventable, certain policies and procedures, properly implemented, may deter or discourage criminal activity.”71 “Every establishment has to find the right balance for its environment—weighing the benefits of security against the extent to which each measure will inconvenience guests.”72
• •“Lodging property security efforts may involve such areas of concern as guestroom security, key control, locks, access control, perimeter control, alarm systems, communication systems, lighting, closed-circuit television, safe deposit boxes, inventory control, credit and billing procedures, computer security, staffing, pre-employment screening, employee training, responsible service of alcoholic beverages, emergency procedures, safety procedures, record keeping, and more.”73
• •Fire is a constant concern in hotel buildings. “Since hotel guests are [primarily] transients, special consideration must be given to the potential threat to their life safety from fire. For example, occupants of the residential portion of a hotel sleep in unfamiliar surroundings and could possibly become disoriented when trying to evacuate under heavy smoke conditions. Likewise, persons in ballrooms, lounges, [casinos,] and restaurants could become disoriented due to low-level lighting, crowd size, and unfamiliarity with evacuation routes.”74
• •The purpose of establishing, implementing, and maintaining a building emergency management plan is to provide for the life safety of all occupants within a hotel.
• •The training of hotel occupants in fire life safety procedures is very different for a hotel. Apart from verbal instructions that can be given by organizers at the commencement of a function in the hotel, primarily hotel management relies on documentation and exit signage to communicate safety messages to guests and visitors.

Key Terms

Assembly occupancy. “An occupancy (1) used for a gathering of 50 or more persons for deliberation, worship, entertainment, eating, drinking, amusement, awaiting transportation, or similar uses; or (2) used as a special amusement building, regardless of occupant load.”75

Atrium (plural atria). A large open space within a structure that is two or more floors high. Some buildings, particularly “larger-scale hotel building configurations often have atria two or three stories high and sometimes up to sixty stories high, which are often the focal point of building design. Atrium areas themselves may include several occupancies or mixed functions associated with hotel operations.”76

Bellhop. “Also bellboy or bellman, is a hotel porter, who helps patrons with their luggage while checking in or out. They often wear a uniform like certain other page boys or doormen. The job's name is derived from the fact that the hotel's front desk would ring a bell to summon an available employee, who would “hop” (jump) to attention at the desk in order to receive instructions…. Duties that are often included in this job are opening the front door, moving luggage, valeting cars, calling cabs, transporting guests, giving directions, basic concierge work, and responding to any of the guest needs.”77

Business occupancy. “An occupancy used for the transaction of business (other than those covered under “mercantile”) for the keeping of accounts and records and for similar purposes.”78

Concierge. Provides information and services to building tenants, residents, guests, and visitors and performs other duties as specified by the facility.

Concierge floor. A hotel floor specially catering to guests (particularly business travelers) who are offered extra service such as a room with upgraded bedding and turndown service, access to a private lounge (some staying open from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. each day), separate meeting rooms, and complimentary meals, drinks, newspapers, concierge services, and other amenities. Many concierge floors are access controlled and therefore provide an extra layer of security.

Doorman. “An individual hired to provide courtesy and security services at a residential building or hotel. They are particularly common in urban luxury highrises [and major hotels]. At a residential building, a doorman is responsible for opening doors and screening visitors and deliveries. He [or she] will often provide other courtesy services such as signing for packages, carrying luggage between the elevator and the street, or hailing taxis for residents and guests.”79 At hotels they provide a wide variety of guest services.♦

Guest. In hotel buildings, this person “lodges, boards, or receives refreshment for pay (as at a hotel … or restaurant) whether permanently or transiently.”80 A guest is sometimes known as a patron.

Guest folio. “A printout of guest activity while in [a] hotel.”81

Hotel. “The term ‘hotel’ is an all-inclusive designation for facilities that provide comfortable lodging and generally, but not always food, beverage, entertainment, a business environment, and other ‘away from home’ services.”82

Hotel-residences. “Hotel residences have kitchens and everything else an owner would expect in a typical abode, they also include amenities such as maid and room service, plus restaurants, spas and gyms…. Typically, [these] residences are on the top floors of hotels.”83

Inn. A lodging facility (such as a hotel or a motel) that provides food and lodging to guests. In Britain, it formerly referred to a place of residence for students.84

Innkeeper. The landlord of an inn or a lodging facility. See also landlord.

Landlord. A person or an organization that owns a facility and leases or rents it, or a part of it, to a tenant(s). See also innkeeper.

Lodging facility. A facility such as a hotel or a motel. See also hotel and motel.

Mercantile occupancy. “An occupancy used for the display and sale of merchandise.”85

Motel. “A general designation for lodging establishments that specialize in attracting the motoring public by offering parking accommodations. The distinctions between hotels and motels are gradually disappearing.”86 See also hotel.

Mutual aid agreement. “A pre-arranged agreement developed between two or more entities to render assistance to the parties of the agreement.”87

Occupancy. “The purpose for which a building or other structure, or part thereof, is used or intended to be used.”88

Patron. “A person who is a customer, client, or paying guest, [especially] a regular one, of a store, hotel, or the like.”89 See also guest.

PBX operator. A person who greets people telephoning a hotel. They answer callers’ questions, provide guidance, and direct calls to various hotel departments. Also, they handle guest inquiries and setting up wakeup calls. As well as these communications services, they may also be responsible for monitoring the hotel's fire life system.90 Sometimes known as a switchboard operator.

Penthouse. A structure on the roof of a building to cover a stairway, elevator shaft, or other equipment, or a dwelling on the top floor or roof of a building.91

Premises security. “That combination of security measures (such as locks, fences, lights, closed circuit television, and security officer patrolling) in use at a premises (such as a hotel, apartment complex, and office building).”92

Slander. “The speaking of base and defamatory words tending to prejudice another in his reputation, community standing, office, trade, business, or means of livelihood.”93

Standard of care. “In law of negligence, that degree of care which a reasonably prudent person should exercise in same or similar circumstances. If a person's conduct falls below such standard, he may be liable in damages for injuries or damages resulting from his conduct.”94

Visitor. In hotel buildings it is a nonguest who visits a hotel guest or uses its facilities (such as meeting rooms, conference facilities, recreational facilities, restaurants, bars, a casino, or a discotheque).