Tag Archives: Security

by | August 22, 2011 · 9:14 am

Hospitality Industry Safety Concerns: Survey Ranks Hotel's "Cleanliness" Over "Security" As Most Important Factor In Making Reservation

Americans rank cleanliness (43%) over security (11%) as the most important factor in selecting a hotel, according to a survey conducted on behalf of the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies.

The survey also showed that 84% of Americans would not refrain from traveling for business on September 11, 2011, the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack. Fewer than one in five of Americans are fearful of flying on September 11, 2011, while only 16% are fearful about flying on an airplane on a national holiday.

“Travelers should take safety precautions more seriously, and travel security should be higher on their checklist than cleanliness,” said Jim Villa, a senior vice president and North American manager for Chubb’s Accident & Health business. “It seems that more people are concerned about housekeeping than security.”

In other survey findings regarding the 9/11 anniversary:

  • Nearly one-third of respondents would be concerned about being near a nuclear power plant on September 11;
  • 22% would avoid a chemical plant;
  • 18% would avoid entering a sports stadium or entertainment venue with a large crowd of people;
  • 16% would be concerned about being near an oil refinery;
  • 13% would be concerned about being near a military base;
  • 14% would not take a cruise;
  • 11% would not take a train; and
  • 9% would avoid taking a ferry.

For more:  http://www.chubb.com/corporate/chubb14110.html

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by | May 21, 2011 · 7:51 am

Hotel Industry Employee Security Risks: Arrest Of IMF Executive For Sexual Assault On Housekeeper Highlights Potential Dangers As Security Personnel Layoffs Leave Staff Vulnerable

“…Hotel housekeepers say they often feel a twinge of fear when they slide the key card, turn the door handle and step into a room to clean it. What will they find?…”

“…Many more (incidents) are hushed up, labor groups say, because the victims are illegal immigrants or because hotels are wary of scaring off guests. Many hotels laid off security staff during the recession, leaving workers even more vulnerable…”

For Argelia Rico, it was a naked man who touched himself as he ogled her. For Kimberly Phillips, it was a pair of dogs that tore into her leg.

Last week the former head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was charged with chasing a housekeeper around his $3,000-a-night penthouse suite and forcing her to perform oral sex on him at the Sofitel hotel in New York.

Labor groups and hotel housekeepers have reported at least 10 other such incidents in the United States in recent years, from Gaithersburg to remote Grand Island, Neb.

“It’s dangerous work,” said Yazmin Vazquez, who works at a hotel in downtown Chicago. “These customers think they can use us for anything they want, because we don’t have the power that they have or the money that they have.”

For more:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-wake-of-strauss-kahn-arrest-hotel-housekeepers-say-jobs-often-make-them-wary/2011/05/21/AFIe6j8G_story.html

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by | April 3, 2011 · 4:02 pm

Hotel Industry Security Risks: Georgia Hotel Security Guard Shoots And Kills Armed Robbery Suspect After Chase Through Hotel

The shooting happened around 2:30 a.m. on a property adjacent to the Quality Inn Suites on Old National Highway, according to the College Park Police Department.

A security guard chased down an armed robber and killed him early Friday outside a hotel in College Park. Kadeesh Comer, 21, had just robbed a clerk at the hotel, and a security guard chased him outside the hotel, police said.

Comer shot at the guard with a 0.22-cal revolver, and the guard returned fire, killing him, police said. No charges were filed against the guard. Hotel owner Ramesh Bhagat told Channel 2 Action News that the clerk handed over $150, but that it wasn’t enough for the robber.

“He asked for more money, but we said ‘We don’t have more money,’ because we do all business by credit card,” Bhagat told the news station. The security guard noticed the commotion and intervened.

For more:  http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/police-hotel-guard-shoots-895131.html

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by | March 25, 2011 · 3:05 pm

Hospitality Industry Guest Security: Hotel Security Depends On Management Adopting A "Global Security Program"

Effective security and risk management relies on a foundation of principles including critical rapid data flow, standardization of emergency protocols, executive leadership and effective local management, not luck. We can guarantee only that attacks against hotels will happen again. The nature of the hospitality industry offers porous, soft, attractive targets.

The corporate security departments of most major hotel brands are not budgeted to provide the effective layers of detection or deterrence required to minimize this risk. A cautious examination of the major world economies reveals the first early signs of improvement. This presents an opportunity for major brands to offer an enhanced measure of security to their important customer base. We should consider that the safety of business and recreational travel is on the minds of everyone who boards a plane and visits or stays as a guest in your facilities. Comfortably resolving this sense of uneasiness is good business.

There are several critical elements required to create an effective hotel global security program:

•    security risk management software (global command and control);
•    security management standardization by venue;
•    new generation security equipment with software analytics; and
•    training.

Management methods that increase margins and reduce the risk of crime, terror, accidents and incidents, can be summarized by four words: global command and control.

For more:  http://www.hotelnewsnow.com/Articles.aspx/5239/Guest-safety-in-an-unsafe-world

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by | December 7, 2010 · 6:22 am

Hotel Industry Security Risks: Connecticut Hotel Pays Damages To Settle Civil Suit Brought By Woman Assaulted In Hotel Garage By A “Drifter” Who “Roamed The Garage For Hours”

The Tresser Boulevard hotel was accused of failing to prevent the 2006 assault in which a drifter roamed the garage for hours

Surveillance cameras in hotels.

before sexually assaulting a woman named in court papers as “Jane Doe.”

The victim claimed Fricker had been in the hotel and garage and acted suspiciously for days leading up to the sexual assault. The lawsuit alleged the hotel security staff failed to notice him or make him leave.

A woman raped at gunpoint in front of her children four years ago in the Stamford Marriott parking garage has settled a civil lawsuit filed against the hotel for an undisclosed amount of money.

Attorneys involved in the lawsuits would not comment about details in the case, which was withdrawn this September and resolved using a private alternative dispute resolution firm.

“It’s been resolved to the satisfaction of both parties and no further comment will be made,” said Donald Derrico, a lawyer representing the Stamford Marriott Hotel and Spa. The Tresser Boulevard hotel was accused of failing to prevent the 2006 assault in which a drifter roamed the garage for hours before sexually assaulting a woman named in court papers as “Jane Doe.”

Gary Fricker, a Danbury native and transient carpenter, was arrested three days after the October 2006 assault and was sentenced a year later to 20 years in prison. Wanted in Florida on arson charges, Fricker roamed the Marriott parking garage looking for victims before targeting a then-40-year-old mother, an arrest affidavit said.

One woman called police after the assault and said a man matching Fricker’s description was following her around the garage about an hour before the attack. A second woman reported her ATM card stolen from the garage that afternoon. Fricker tried to use it later that day, police said.

Authorities say Fricker put a gun to the back of the victim and forced her young children into their minivan, where he raped the woman after trying to rob her. He fled when the woman screamed and a car passed by. He was arrested in White Plains, N.Y., and immediately confessed to the attack.

The civil lawsuit was filed in March 2008, six month after Fricker was sentenced. The victim claimed Fricker had been in the hotel and garage and acted suspiciously for days leading up to the sexual assault. The lawsuit alleged the hotel security staff failed to notice him or make him leave.

The hotel had no security director or internal security policies at the time of the assault, according to a deposition in the case.

More than a year after the lawsuit was filed, controversy erupted over special defenses filed by lawyers hired by the Marriott that claimed the woman was careless, negligent and failed to “exercise due care” for her own safety and for the safety of her children. Attorneys said if the defense wasn’t raised they might have lost a chance to bring it up again in the future.

For more:  http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Settlement-reached-in-Marriott-rape-case-860707.php

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by | December 6, 2010 · 7:15 am

Hospitality Industry Credit Card Risks: Hotel Owners And Management Must Store “Credit Card And Guest Receipts” In Secure Locations To Prevent Identity Theft

“… (the defendents) found boxes of monthly credit card receipts from previous hotel guests. Box by box, they and others lifted them from the hotel, officials allege…”

The receipts, officials say, helped the men manufacture counterfeit credit cards in document “boiler rooms” and card “chop shops,” which they then used to buy $300,000 worth of merchandise in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana.

The merchandise, which included tow trailers, televisions, all-terrain vehicles and tires, then was resold or pawned.

The hotel didn’t learn of the thefts until August 2008, and since then, federal investigators have learned at least 17,000 receipts were stolen in what they say is San Antonio’s largest identity theft case.

Details had remained sketchy until the ringleader, Ruben “Hollywood” Costello, 36, recently pleaded guilty to ID theft fraud conspiracy, access device fraud, and conspiracy to launder money, and documents in the case were unsealed.

They identify Jones, 34, as his partner in the crimes and name him and Flaharty, 31, as two people who helped take the records from the Emily Morgan.

They also reveal Costello used a network of associates, methamphetamine addicts and others to maintain the scheme, and used an Elmendorf trucking company he ran, RD&N Hauling, to launder the money.

The cardholders never realized their credit card accounts had been compromised until months, even years, after they stayed at the hotel. But the damage made it hard for some of them to get loans and left lingering headaches in trying to straight things out, officials said.“When you look at these types of crimes, you may think the victim is the vendor or the credit card companies,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom McHugh said. “What we see is that the person whose identity is stolen, his problems may go on for years.”

For more:  http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Ringleader-pleads-in-S-A-s-largest-ID-theft-case-859510.php

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by | December 2, 2010 · 9:27 am

Hotel Industry Risk Management: “GuestChecker.com” And Its “Twitter” Site Represent A Trend In Current And Future Web-Based Solutions To Guest Security Issues

http://twitter.com/GuestChecker

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by | October 30, 2010 · 5:26 am

Hospitality Industry Fire Risk Management: “Security Alert! Check The Security Of Your Hotel’s Knox Boxes Frequently” By Todd Seiders, CLSD, Petra Risk Solutions

Risk Management

by Todd Seiders, CLSD

Check your Knox Boxes! A Knox Box, known officially as the KNOX-BOX Rapid Entry System, is a small, wall-mounted safe-like box that holds building keys for firefighters and EMTs to retrieve in emergencies. In many jurisdictions, the local Fire Department requires that a Knox Box be located outside of your hotel (check with your local Fire Department for requirements; some jurisdictions may not require hotels to have one), for their use only, in the event of an emergency. The Knox Box has a complete set of the hotel’s master keys locked inside this box.

Knox Boxes simplify key control for local fire departments. Local fire companies can hold master keys to all such boxes in their response area, so that they can quickly enter a building without having to force entry or find individual keys held in deposit at the fire station. Sometimes Knox Boxes are linked via radio to the dispatch station, where the dispatcher can release the keys with telecommunication tone signaling over analog phone lines.

Knox Boxes have advantages and disadvantages for both business owners and emergency responders. The main advantage for their use is that they cut fire losses for building owners since firefighters can more quickly enter buildings without breaking doors or windows. The disadvantage of the system is that it provides a single point of failure for security. If the key to a district’s Knox Boxes is stolen or copied, a thief can enter any building that has a Knox Box. Likewise, if the locking mechanism or structural integrity of the box is compromised, a thief can gain access to the keys and hence access to the entire building. For this reason some building owners wire Knox Boxes into their burglar alarm systems so that opening the box trips the alarm, thus negating its use in facilitating clandestine entry.

 
 
 
 

Todd Seiders, CLSD, is director of risk management for Petra Risk Solutions, which provides a full-range of risk management and insurance services for hospitality owners and operators. Their website is: www.petrarisksolutions.com. Todd can be reached at 800-466-8951 or via e-mail at: todds@petrarisksolutions.com.)

 

Knox Boxes are an actual miniature safe designed to withstand tampering and are built in a variety of sizes ranging from a box designed for two keys to one designed to hold hazardous material information and multiple keys. Prices start at approximately $250.00. Most Knox Boxes are mounted onto a wood or steel mounting with the screws or bolts covered.

Yet, this does not mean that Knox Boxes are indestructible or cannot be removed from their mounting with force. We have recently seen many of these Knox Boxes forcefully removed from their wall mountings and stolen from the property. In several cases the thieves then returned to the hotel with the master keys and stole items.

In one theft at a hotel the thieves specifically used the master keys to access the storage room for the hotel night audit packets and guest files. The thieves stole hundreds of night audit packets containing the names, addresses and credit card numbers of previous guests. Obviously, hotels can be held liable for breach of guests’ personal information or loss of their credit card data.

So, what should hoteliers do? Secure your night audit packets/files in a secure room that has a hard metal key, rather than a magnetic key card lock. There should only be one or two hotel employees that have access to the night audit storage room, and storage room keys. Secure these files separately, and control all access to them. DO NOT include a key to this storage room in your Knox Box, or on your “master key ring”, or even leave this key unattended in a key box. The night audit file storage room key should be kept separate from all other keys.

As for the hotel’s Knox Box, local ordinances may require that your property have a Knox Box in the event of an emergency. If so, follow these suggestions:

  • Check that your Knox Box is solidly secured to its location, using numerous heavy duty screws or bolts to make it extremely hard to remove.

 

  • Relocate your Knox Box to a well lit area, and in view of security cameras, if your property has them.

 

  • Add a visual inspection of the Knox Box to your property inspection form and security tours so it will be inspected on a regular basis. This will let you know in a timely manner if someone has tried to remove it, or has in fact actually removed or damaged. Immediately re-key the entire hotel if the Knox Box is stolen or the keys inside come up missing. 

 

Pictured above: Here’s what some of the various Knox Boxes look like.

(Todd Seiders, CLSD, is director of risk management for Petra Risk Solutions, which provides a full-range of risk management and insurance services for hospitality owners and operators. Their website is: www.petrarisksolutions.com. Todd can be reached at 800-466-8951 or via e-mail at: todds@petrarisksolutions.com.)  

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by | October 19, 2010 · 11:21 am

Hospitality Industry Information Technology: Small- To Medium-Sized Hotel Owners Should Support A “Shared-Services” Model For Data And Call Center Services

CLICK ON PICTURE TO READ ENTIRE "SHARED TECHNOLOGY REPORT"

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by | October 14, 2010 · 6:24 pm

Hospitality Industry Security Risks: Arizona City Hotel Ordinance Seeks To Curb Guests Who Pay In Cash And Withhold Registering Name In Attempt To Stop Crime

The city is advancing a hotel-motel ordinance designed to track who stays in hotels, which police say will drive away prostitutes, drug dealers and other criminals who pay in cash and don’t give their name.

Police are more interested in patrons who pay by cash or who check in at hotels that don’t require a name, Chief Frank Milstead said. Patrons who check in with a credit card aren’t trying to hide, he said.

Mesa hotels will likely be forced to ask guests for an ID or some other proof of identity under a push to drive crime out of the city’s hotels.

The city is advancing a hotel-motel ordinance designed to track who stays in hotels, which police say will drive away prostitutes, drug dealers and other criminals who pay in cash and don’t give their name.

Police say other cities have fought crime with similar rules, but technology is posing a challenge as the city drafts an ordinance that requires a hotel to see a guest’s ID, verify license plate numbers and keep records for a year.

Many hotels are converting to paperless registration, so it’s possible for guests to check in, pay by credit card and get a key without interacting with a hotel employee. Hotels don’t want to burden guests with showing an ID when a swipe of a credit card will identify who is checking in, said Robert Brinton, president of the Mesa Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“We don’t want them to say it’s a hassle staying in Mesa,” Brinton said.

Police are more interested in patrons who pay by cash or who check in at hotels that don’t require a name, Chief Frank Milstead said. Patrons who check in with a credit card aren’t trying to hide, he said.

“Those aren’t the people we’re looking for,” Milstead said.

The city’s Public Safety Committee agreed to move forward with the rules on Thursday. The proposal stems from police statistics in 2009 that showed 6 percent of all warrant arrests and 4 percent of all drug arrests were at hotels and motels. Just 10 hotels accounted for 49 percent of the warrant arrests and 64 percent of drug arrests. Police say regulation will greatly reduce the time they spend at hotels and allow them to fight other crime.

A hotel-motel review board would oversee the rules, with some members being nominated by the hotel industry and some by the city. Hotels that don’t collect IDs and keep the information for a year could face fines of $250 to $2,500.

Hotels support the rules, but say the ID issue needs to be resolved so it’s possible for guests to check in without showing an ID to a hotel when their identity has been revealed through a credit card payment. Also, Brinton said the six-page ordinance could probably be thinned to two pages to make the rules simple.

For more:  http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/local/article_cdd2a84c-d7e3-11df-a6e4-001cc4c03286.html

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