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Creating a secure and safe lodging industry
Places of lodging have multiple challenges when it comes to issues of security and privacy. Over the last decade, multiple new offerings have joined the classical hotel or motel offerings. Today, visitors have a variety of accommodations that range from guest houses, private homes that accept guests, all forms of bed-and-breakfasts, and sleeping pods for those who seek a few hours of relaxation while they travel.
By Dr Peter Tarlow, Tourism & More. inc.
Ever since the Covid-19 pandemic, much in the lodging industry has changed, not only in countries such as the United States, Canada, and European nations, but throughout the world.
To add to the post-Covid increase in tourism, both terrorists and all sorts of criminals have found ways to take advantage of places of lodging. These security and safety challenges present themselves across a wide spectrum and include such issues as cyber security, personal and guest privacy, data breaches, pilferage and robbery, acts of terrorism, and issues of biosafety and health.
To help you to consider some of the challenges, Tourism Tidbits offers the following suggestions. Tourism Tidbits reminds its readers that they should take the ideas expressed in this article as mere suggestions and that readers should consult with legal, security and medical experts before making any decision.
In creating a secure environment be sure to:
• Define your challenges and problem(s). All too often, tourism and travel professionals are so overwhelmed by issues of S&S (safety and security) that they fail to define which problems are central for their locale or business. For example, are the major challenges facing your place of lodging the following: the need to protect tourists, not only from crimes against them, but also from acts of terrorism and issues of health, including outbreaks of infectious diseases such as meningitis. If you serve food, how do you know that the food and water are safe? Is your place of lodging prepared to deal with natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods, as well as man-made problems such as traffic accidents and equipment failures? Once you have defined the major threats to your locale, make sure that the methods used to mitigate the problem are not only totally within the law, but fit within your budget and the cultural morals of your community.
• Make sure that all employees are fully vetted.
There is nothing more disastrous than an unlawful employee. Employees have the rights, at specific times, to enter a guest’s room to clean the room or to make repairs. Employees do not have the right to go through a guest’s personal belongings, use a guest’s personal property (including technical devices such as a computer or to photograph or film without expressed permission.
• Create and enforce guidelines.
All employees should be trained and given written guidelines as to what is and what is not acceptable behaviour. Employees should receive regular refresher courses at least once a year, and, as new policies are required, all employees should be updated on the most current policies.
• Identify new problems that will impact your part of the tourism/travel industry.
Not only should current problems be addressed, but it behoves the S&S professional to anticipate problems that may have not yet occurred. For example, in an ever more connected world with higher levels of technology, places of lodging need to ensure consumer privacy while still maintaining a proper level of safety and security. Lodging professionals, along with others in the travel and tourism industry, will need to determine what are acceptable levels of risk, develop cross-cultural safety and security standards, and demonstrate the impact of safety and security to administrator’s concerned about profitability.
• Never forget that places with high levels of good customer service tend to be the safest businesses.
Tourism businesses that provide poor customer service send out a message that they do not care about the well-being of their guests. On the other hand, businesses in which employees tend to care about their guests tend to be safer. Creating an environment of caring is the first step toward good guest safety and security procedures.
• Determine who has responsibility to protect, inform, and to educate both our guests and employees.
All too often, the travel and tourism industry has simply assumed that S&S is someone else's responsibility. Be sure that the following is the place of lodging’s management’s responsibility:
• do S&S responsibilities fall only to private enterprise or should governments also be involved –
• how much victim assistance should hotels provide when an incident occurs –
• does the tourism industry have a right to seek assistance from other sources such as governments –
• who should define and implement travel and tourism victim assistance –
• who will oversee the implementation of these policies?
Address concerns such as:
• how much information is needed by the public about a security situation –
• how is a balance created between educating the public, working with the media, and still not harming the local travel and tourism industry?
The above questions are important research topics in which academics and practitioners alike can develop theoretical models with high levels of utilitarian value.
Understand that most guests neither read the safety material that has been provided for them nor, in times of emergency, will they remember what it says. Reading material exists to make hotel administrators feel better, but rarely do guests read it or remember what is in it. When designing a hotel security programme, develop it in such a way as to assume that guests will not be cautious for themselves.
Consider some of the following suggestions to improve S&S for your place of lodging and throughout the travel and tourism industry.
• train all people working in a place of lodging and in travel and tourism in matters of safety and security,
• making sure that all employees understand the risks involved in ignoring these problems,
• sensitising law enforcement agencies to the issues of travel safety and security, especially in places of lodging,
• Review with a qualified legal and medical expert all potential risks.
At your place of lodging be sure that:
• All technology is in good working order, including telephone, smoke detectors, strong boxes, etc.
• Be sure that no technology is used to invade another person’s privacy
• Train frontline personnel on how to spot guests who may be on premises to create problems
• Conduct background checks on employees, and update those checks
• Have a clear emergency response plan
• Plan not only for the obvious safety and security concerns, but also for those that are unlikely, but can cause a great deal of personal or reputational damage.
Who is Dr Peter E. Tarlow ?
Dr Peter E. Tarlow is the president of T&M, a founder of the Texas chapter of TTRA and a popular author and speaker on tourism. Dr Tarlow is a specialist in the areas of sociology of tourism, economic development, tourism safety and security. Dr Tarlow speaks at governors’ and state conferences on tourism and conducts seminars throughout the world and for numerous agencies and universities.
