[vimeo https://vimeo.com/113722566 w=500&h=281]
Petra Risk Solutions’ Loss Control Manager, Matt Karp, offers a P3 Hospitality Risk Report – ‘Preventing Credit Card Fraud at Hotels’.Â
P3 (Petra Plus Process) is the Risk Management Division of Petra Risk Solutions – America ’s largest independent insurance brokerage devoted exclusively to the hospitality marketplace.
For more information on Petra and P3 visit petrarisksolutions.com or call 800.466.8951.
Many hotels fail to perform adequate background checks on job applicants before hiring them. In September 2011, a woman staying at a Best Western hotel in Arizona woke up in the middle of the night
to find a man standing over her bed. She says the man raped her. He was a registered level-3 sex offender, according to news reports, but Best Western had hired him as a night clerk and given him a master key to guest rooms, allowing him unfettered access to turn any of its female guests into his next victims
The difference between a hotel room at $75 a night and $750 a night is the view, the extra shampoo, the cost of the pillows, the fluff of the towels. Price is a measure of comfort and service. What must always be the same — at every price — is your security, your safety and cleanliness. Unfortunately, it’s not. Across the country, hotels are skimping on key safety and security measures, and the consequences range from stolen laptops and Peeping Toms to sexual assaults and robbery at gunpoint. More than 125 property crimes are committed in hotels and motels every day, in addition to more than 21 violent crimes (excluding murders).
For more:Â http://wapo.st/1vnfYFb
Comments Off on Hospitality Industry Security Update: “The Case For Giving Hotels the Same Health Grades as Restaurants”
Filed under Crime, Guest Issues, Hotel Employees, Hotel Industry, Management And Ownership, Risk Management
Under the ordinance, which took effect last month, motel owners must apply for a conditional use permit to allow any new long-term tenants.
To be granted a permit, the motel must meet requirements such as providing on-site laundry facilities, installing kitchens in every room and having at least 75 rooms.
A recently enacted law that limits how long people can stay at motels in Costa Mesa was illegally designed to target low-income residents, a lawsuit filed against the city alleges.
The Public Law Center, a Santa Ana-based pro bono law firm, sued this week on behalf of a group of residents to block an ordinance adopted last August limiting when motel guests can rent a room for more than 30 days.
For more:Â http://lat.ms/1FHJlDm
Comments Off on Hospitality Industry Legal Update: “Costa Mesa Sued Over Law Limiting Stays at Motels
Filed under Crime, Guest Issues, Hotel Industry, Management And Ownership, Risk Management
“The hospitality industry plays a critical role in the fight against modern slavery, since many traffickers exploit their victims in hotels and motels,†said Bradley Myles, chief executive officer of Polaris.  
“If we are to truly eradicate human trafficking, it’s absolutely essential that companies like Wyndham take proactive steps to combat this crime at the root while also helping victims rebuild their lives. Polaris applauds Wyndham Hotel Group for integrating a responsible business culture company-wide and for actively taking such a strong stance against human trafficking.â€
Wyndham Hotel Group, the world’s largest hotel company with approximately 7,590 hotels and part of Wyndham Worldwide Corporation (NYSE: WYN), today announced its continued commitment to preventing human trafficking by partnering with Polaris, a leader in the global fight to eradicate modern slavery and restore freedom to survivors.
As part of the joint effort, Wyndham Hotel Group and Polaris are developing comprehensive training and educational tools for hotel owners and franchisees, property-level staff and employees at its corporate offices and call centers to educate them about all aspects of human trafficking.
For more:Â http://bit.ly/1r2xZbX
Comments Off on Hospitality Industry Risk Management Update: “Wyndham Hotel Group Partners with Polaris to Help Prevent Human Trafficking”
Filed under Crime, Guest Issues, Hotel Industry, Management And Ownership, Risk Management, Training
Hoteliers need to know how the bandwidth is currently being used so they can prioritize different types of usage. Packet inspection equipment can help you figure out if guests are using the Internet
to download movie torrents or to make voice over IP calls, and then you can prioritize and make more bandwidth available for one activity over the other. “You don’t want to overpay for excess bandwidth when it isn’t necessary,â€
Two years ago, BioMarin, a pharmaceutical firm based in San Rafael, Calif., called Inn Marin to book an offsite training session. This wasn’t unusual since the 69-room independent hotel is located eight miles up the road from the company’s headquarters. And with only 35 people attending, the meeting requirements were far from onerous. But there was one last-minute request that nearly caused Inn Marin to lose this booking. BioMarin needed an Internet connection that was six megabits per second (Mbps) or faster to allow 20 desktop computers to log into the corporate server in San Rafael. And the DSL line coming into the hotel was only capable of 1 Mbps down and 1/2 Mbps up. “I just about had a heart attack,†says Inn Marin General Manager Robert Marshall. “That’s when I realized that we couldn’t keep doing business like this.â€
For more:Â http://bit.ly/1p3ciar
Comments Off on Hospitality Industry Technology Update: “How Much Bandwidth Does Your Property Need?”
Filed under Guest Issues, Hotel Industry, Management And Ownership, Technology
In the wireless Internet age, guests increasingly expect a personalized experience abroad as well as at home. That can be tough on hotels, as rapid changes in technology make
it difficult and expensive for them to adapt. A few years ago, hotels equipped themselves to handle two mobile devices per guest. Now, guests may have three or more, and just when they thought they had needs covered, hotels have to build more robust networks.
When you receive your morning wake-up call at theWit hotel in Chicago, there’s no robotic voice intoning, “It’s time for your wakeup call.†Instead, you can be rousted by a very different message:
“Hey you dirty rat, this is Al Capone reminding you to get your rotten bones out of that sack. Now get moving—I’ve got an overdue Valentine’s Day gift for Elliot Ness I’ve still got to deliver! [Laughter and gun shots].”
Or perhaps you’d rather hear Muddy Waters. Or Ann Landers. The touchscreen next to the phones in all of the hotel’s 310 rooms lets you choose who will urge you to rise and shine. Touch that same screen to request extra pillows, get a toothbrush or order meals—without ever picking up the phone.
For more:Â http://onforb.es/1uwkOOA
Comments Off on Hospitality Industry Technology Update: “How Tech Will Make Your Hotel Room Feel Like Home (Or Better)”
Filed under Guest Issues, Hotel Industry, Management And Ownership, Social Media, Technology
At a Crowne Plaza hotel, the maid collected all the used drinking glasses, put them into the sink, and turned on the water. Then she gathered all the dirty towels from the bathroom floor,
held onto one, and used it to help dry the cups. The Crowne Plaza maid then used the same towel to wipe down the countertop, the toilet and the bathtub. She never used soap on anything, but she did return to spray the room with air freshener.
When you check into a hotel room, you assume the maid has cleaned everything, including changing the sheets and disinfecting the bathroom. But a hidden camera investigation revealed that may not always be the case.
The Rossen Reports team booked rooms for two nights at some of the most popular hotel chains and rigged them with cameras (all three of the hotels were in northeastern New Jersey). In each case they put soda in the glasses, threw towels on the bathroom floors and made the rooms looked used before calling to have housekeeping make them up, as well as prominently displaying the card requesting that all linens be changed.
For more: http://on.today.com/1ur6PcG
Comments Off on Hospitality Industry Management Update: “Hidden Cameras Reveal How Much (And How Little) Some Hotel Maids Really Clean”
Filed under Employee Practices, Guest Issues, Hotel Employees, Hotel Industry, Management And Ownership, Risk Management, Training
Whatever the cost, hoteliers are advised to take certain precautions. “Complacency†is dangerous, Schoshinski said, adding that hoteliers should update security protection plans periodically
…Despite such resources and other preventative measures in the hotel industry, “the bad guys are getting smarter,†Cividanes said. “The bad guys are watching what you do.
Data security breaches, a hot topic at last year’s Hotel & Lodging Legal Summit, took center stage again at the 2014 conference as the No. 1 topic that keeps hospitality lawyers “awake at night,†said Robert Lannan, program co-chair and principal of Lannan Legal PLLC.
His opening remarks mentioned several headline-making cases, including breaches at Target, Home Depot and White Lodging, where it was revealed in January 2013 that attackers allegedly collected customer credit and debit card numbers, security codes, card expiration dates and other personal information from guests who had stayed at 14 hotels.
For more: http://bit.ly/1zwrVIk
Comments Off on Hospitality Industry Security Update: “Cybersecurity Needs Planning, Periodic Review”
Filed under Crime, Guest Issues, Hotel Industry, Management And Ownership, Risk Management, Technology, Theft
Safeguarding against such an attack can be difficult for hotel guests. The best defense is to double check update alerts that pop up on your computer during a stay in a hotel. Go to the software vendor’s site directly to see if an update has been posted and download it directly from there. Though, of course, this won’t help if the attackers are able to redirect your machine to a malicious download site
A hacking campaign known as Darkhotel has been deployed by Hackers to steal sensitive information from business executives, security researchers have revealed.
How it happened is that the sophisticated attackers had been lurking on the hotel’s network for days waiting for him to check in. They uploaded their malware to the hotel’s server days before then deleted it from the hotel network days after.
For more:Â http://bit.ly/1B9M6jS
Comments Off on Hospitality Industry Security Update: “Hackers Using Hotel Wi-Fi to Check Into Victims’ Computers”
Filed under Crime, Guest Issues, Hotel Industry, Risk Management, Technology
After the outbreak, staff members with the county’s Communicable Disease and Environmental Health Service began working with hotel management
to implement infectious disease containment measures. The measures include frequent and comprehensive cleaning of common areas, educating employees about the virus and posting additional signage reminding employees to wash their hands.
Public health officials say 60 people who fell ill after staying at a Bay Area luxury hotel two weeks ago contracted the norovirus — a highly contagious virus that can lead to stomach pain, nausea and diarrhea.
San Mateo County health officials confirmed Friday that the guests and employees of the Hotel Sofitel in Redwood City became ill sometime after Oct. 28, and traced the illness to the highly contagious norovirus, which spreads after contact with an infected person or contaminated food and water.
For more:Â http://lat.ms/1uYVKCD
And for more on how to help prevent Norovirus at your property, check out the video below from Petra’s own P3 Risk Management Team.
[vimeo https://vimeo.com/98741016 w=500&h=281]
Petra Risk Solutions’ Loss Control Manager, Matt Karp, offers a P3 Hospitality Risk Report – ‘Preventing Norovirus at Your Property’.Â
P3 (Petra Plus Process) is the Risk Management Division of Petra Risk Solutions – America ’s largest independent insurance brokerage devoted exclusively to the hospitality marketplace.
For more information on Petra and P3 visit petrarisksolutions.com or call 800.466.8951.
Comments Off on Hospitality Industry Management Update: “60 People Fall Ill With Norovirus at Bay Area Luxury Hotel” (VIDEO)
Filed under Employee Practices, Food Illnesses, Guest Issues, Health, Hotel Employees, Hotel Industry, Hotel Restaurant, Management And Ownership, Risk Management, Training
