The continuous flow of people in and out of a hotel makes it a “soft target” for harm and poses a challenge to the property’s security and to the safety of the people in that hotel. The tragic attacks in Mumbai this past November are a recent reminder of hotels’ vulnerability to safety and security threats.
Using data drawn from the American Hotel & Lodging Association’s 2008 Lodging Survey, I investigated the safety and security features of 5,487 U.S. hotels. The results revealed significant differences in the distribution of safety and security equipment in various hotel price segments.
Safety involves protecting employees and customers within the property from potential injury or death as a result of safety issues such as the effects of accidents, hazardous materials and fire. Safety equipment includes items such as sprinklers, smoke-free guestrooms, security cameras and guest-safety instructions.
Security is concerned with preserving guests’ possessions and the property. Security issues involve such matters as theft and violent crime. Security features include electronic locks, in-room safes, interior corridors and safety materials.
The higher the hotel's score on two indexes composed of weighted scales of safety and security equipment, such as security cameras and sprinklers, the greater the level of its safety and security. The average safety-index score for our sample is an index of 70 percent derived from a perfect score of 100 percent if all the safety and security features listed in the 2008 lodging survey were present in a hotel. The average security-index score is 64 percent. These numbers suggest U.S. hotels score generally higher on physical-safety attributes than they do on the broader security features that include both protecting individuals (safety) and also safeguarding their possessions.
The extent to which a hotel has safety and security features depends on its location. Urban, suburban and airport hotels appear to score higher on safety and security than do hotels located along highways, in resorts or small metropolitan areas, as shown in Exhibit 1. The lowest scores are found for hotels in small towns.
Exhibit 1: Mean Safety and Security Index Scores by Location
Exhibit 2 shows the mean scores by price segment. The survey revealed the highest safety and security scores are for luxury hotels, and, as one moves to lower-priced hotels, fewer safety and security features are present in the hotel. It is not surprising that higher-priced hotels contain more physical safety and security features than hotels in other price segments.
Exhibit 2: Mean Safety and Security Index Scores by Hotel Price Segment
Two additional attributes of hotels might explain variation in the degree to which they have safety and security features: the size and the age of the hotel. Smaller and older hotels invest in fewer features, reflecting decisions to conserve resources or the costs of modifying current facilities. As Exhibits 3 and 4 show, larger and newer hotels tend to have higher scores on both the safety and the security indexes.
Exhibit 3: Mean Safety and Security Index Scores by Number of Rooms
Exhibit 4: Mean Safety and Security Index Scores by Hotel Age
The safety and security indexes offer a preliminary glimpse into the physical elements of a hotel that signal comfort and security to the guest. While the inventory of various physical safety and security features is by no means exhaustive, it does reflect key safety issues. However, the mere presence of equipment, such as electronic locks and security cameras, does not guarantee guests’ safety or security in the absence of personnel who are well-trained to implement a fully developed emergency plan. On the other hand, the hotel would be hard pressed to implement an effective security system in the absence of appropriate equipment.
In summary, the results reveal that hotels are significantly different in the degree to which they have invested in physical attributes to protect guests and employees and to provide a secure environment. While the indexes focus on the existence of various features and not on the effectiveness of their use, the results do suggest that hotels vary significantly on the degree to which they have provided these physical features. Hotels in higher-end price segments and urban locations offer more features than do hotels in economy or budget segments in resort or small town settings. Larger and newer hotels are better outfitted with features such as electronic locks, security cameras, sprinklers, and interior corridors. On balance, luxury and upscale hotels, airport and urban hotels, large properties, and new hotels are most likely to maintain a high level of safety and security amenities. In contrast, old, small, budget motels are the properties most challenged in providing those safety and security features that were studied.
Cathy A. Enz is the Lewis G. Schaeneman Jr. Professor of Innovation and Dynamic Management and a full professor in strategy. She recently served as Associate Dean for Industry Research and Affairs, and served as the Executive Director of the school’s Center for Hospitality Research from 2000-2003. Dr. Enz has published over eighty journal articles, book chapters, and three books in the area of strategic management. Her research has been published in a wide variety of prestigious academic and hospitality journals such as The Administrative Science Quarterly, The Academy of Management Journal, The Journal of Service Research, and The Cornell Hospitality Administration Quarterly.