Safety and security is a growing concern among travelers throughout the world. Let's face it, traveling is stressful enough without having to worry about becoming a crime victim while away from home. One only has to look at the negative impact on hotel bookings, following a highly publicized tourist attack, to see how important the perception of security is to the traveler.

Design Factors

The first opportunity to present a positive impression about the relative safety of a hotel property is at the perimeter. For maximum effectiveness, there must be an obvious and distinct design transition as you enter the property from the public street. Solid deterrent cues include significant barriers like perimeter walls, decorative fencing, landscaped terraces, and a well-defined driveway and main entrance. A strong transition sends a subliminal message to the criminal that this hotel is private property and for use by hotel guests only.

Lighting

Good exterior lighting is designed to fill the gap between the property boundary and the hotel entrance and is the most important nighttime security feature. Public areas, when bathed in light, are both inviting to the guest and a powerful deterrent to crime. Good exterior lighting will allow you to see a potential threat at 100 feet. This minimum level of visibility gives you time to respond to the threat before being confronted by it. Exterior lighting must be even and balanced. Balanced lighting appears warm and comfortable and makes a property feel safe.

Curbside Deterrents

Parking lot security is often the most overlooked area on a hotel property. Stranger-to-stranger crimes against persons are more likely to occur in the parking lot than in any other location. This is because parking lots offer the criminal the best hiding places, the fewest witnesses, and the quickest escape route. Parking lot surveillance can be relatively inexpensive by installing video cameras, but nothing beats a highly visible, uniformed security patrol that is capable of responding to a criminal incident and can call for help. Besides, a hotel guest would rather see a "live person" on the job that is paid to look out for their welfare.

Highly visible doormen and valet parking attendants are a great crime deterrent, especially on smaller hotel properties. Nothing instills more confidence in a hotel guest than a capable doorman who greets and makes eye contact with them as they enter the property. Criminals don't like doormen for two reasons: First, they don't want to be identified, and second, they don't want to be captured should they have to escape in a hurry. Without competent curbside security, crimes like purse snatches, car thefts, and luggage thefts would increase substantially on most urban properties.

A doorman can monitor a property better if the number of entrances is limited, especially at night. This design philosophy gives the hotel the advantage of making the criminal feel "out of place" and therefore more likely to be deterred.

Access control cues must continue inside the property to be totally effective and to foster that "safe and secure feeling" within a guest. As for the criminal, access control is like peeling an onion...the more layers they penetrate, the more uncomfortable it should feel.

Interior Access Control

In a high-rise hotel, the ground floor lobby presents another major opportunity to deter crime. The best security designs position the registration, bell, and concierge desks in a position to view critical access points. Important access points include the front, back, or side entrances, elevator banks, lounge, and restaurant entrances. In large metropolitan hotels, extra attention needs to be paid to guest luggage, briefcases, and handbags left casually on the lobby floor.

Guestroom Security

The guestroom represents the inner-circle of a hotel security plan. The guestroom is the sanctuary for the weary traveler where they expect to be safe. The guestroom doors and windows must be fortified to prevent forced entry, especially at the ground level. Doors must be nothing less than solid-core wood or metal, and be self-closing and self-locking. The door lock must consist of a high quality deadbolt with at least a one-inch bolt. The lock strike-plate must be bolted securely to the metal doorframe or by using three-inch screws when attached to a wood doorjamb. Accessible sliding windows must have secondary security devices attached to prevent forced entry or lifting out of the frame.

Key Control

Metal room keys are slowly being replaced by electronically coded key-cards. There is nothing more unsettling than checking into an upscale hotel and being issued a metal room key with the correct room number stamped on the key. Metal keys require a hotel to maintain an elaborate key control system with daily inventories and master key and E-Key checkout logs for the staff. The guest has no way of knowing adequate key control systems are in place. If a room key or master key turns up missing, technically the locks must be changed and this creates an on-going maintenance expense for a hotel.

Metal room keys do not make the same "security statement" as coded plastic key-cards. Key-cards have the capability of being randomly coded at the point of registration, which re-emphasizes the guest perception of room security. Key-card control is computer-based and therefore creates the necessary audit trail automatically. Master keys can be changed in a matter of a few keystrokes and lost key-cards are easily removed from the system. One of the best features, is the ability of the computer to interrogate each door lock and get a printout of everyone who accessed a particular room.

Predictions

Traveler demand for hotels that promote enhanced security will increase in the coming decade. Security amenities are important to travelers, especially the elderly and women traveling alone. Code 1 Security (Australia) predicts security conscious properties will gain advantage over competing hotels that fail to recognize this important new trend.

To arrange hotel security officers or to request further information please contact Code 1 Security Australia or email Code 1 Security.