Providing a safe haven
The traditional protection offered by the hospitality industry is changing
Meeting the basic human need of providing travellers with somewhere secure to eat and sleep is among the world’s oldest trades.
Though the means of providing this service have changed over the millennia, the obligation to protect guests from the risks that threaten travellers have not.
The original business model for the prototype of the inn, hostelry and hotel would have involved a settled community with adequate shelter and some surplus food seeing an advantage in exchanging these services and commodities for items offered by passing hunters or traders.
The reputation of the early hospitality industry relied on a number of defences against threats to their guests and their possessions. The most obvious – and still applicable – was to provide a secure lodging for travellers, protected where necessary by watchmen patrolling the perimeter while vigilant house staff ensured guests’ safety.
Other forms of protection that are now rarely invoked by security professionals were what may be defined as “moral” defences. These would include the role of religious organisations in providing sanctuary to pilgrims who would sleep soundly in their beds knowing they were enjoying a higher form of protection.
Unwritten but strong cultural rules of hospitality towards some strangers often added another layer of security.
The mechanics of physical protection in an English medieval inn or a caravanserai on the Silk Road would be instantly recognisable to a G4S security manager, with traveller/guest protection mainly served through control of access and a secured perimeter.
In such lawless times, many lodgings resembled small fortresses, built to withstand attack by raiders or mobs. While rooms could be secured by keys when unoccupied most guests travelled in groups with servants who provided an extra layer of security for possessions or goods.
The industrial revolution in Western Europe in the 19th century rapidly changed the needs of travellers. Commercial requirements to meet customers and suppliers and the advent of fast stagecoach and later rail travel meant a growing number of people required secure lodgings, often at a premium price.
The modern hotel emerged during this period, with many building security features into their architecture. For example, access to floors and rooms were readily monitored to control unauthorised visitors – and prevent guests slipping out without paying their bills.
Most guests in the new hotels were business travellers, often with cash, important documents or valuable goods to protect. That emphasis was soon to change. As railways and steamships created the basis for modern tourism in the late 1800s, the hotel industry sought to attract those with the money and time to take often long foreign holidays. A greater emphasis was also placed on gentility and service to attract the new guests.
While security remained a paramount consideration, it also required a degree of concealment in order not to alarm the guests by suggesting that the establishment was in any way unsafe. This period saw the hotel security force transformed from the often openly armed guards to the smartly dressed concierge and doorman. The genuine warmth of their greetings and offers to assist hide the fact that one of their principal functions is security.
By the middle of the 20th century, technical advances – including electronic door keys and payment methods – and the evolution of terrorism had begun to alter the relationship between hotel managements and their guests.
The near universal introduction of credit cards and the threat of extremist violence place hotels and the wider hospitality industry at risk from criminal and political threats.
Although hotels have long been obvious targets for criminals seeking gain or political groups craving publicity or revenge, the bombing of Brighton’s Grand Hotel in 1984 by Irish republican terrorists, when much of the British government was in residence, was a prelude to a wave of similar attacks.
Major terrorist attacks against hotels since then include targets in Netanya, Israel (March 2002), Mombasa, Kenya (December 2002), Jakarta, Indonesia (August 2003), Sharm al-Sheikh, Egypt (July 2005), Amman, Jordan (November 2005) and Kabul, Afghanistan (January 2008).
In many respects, such attacks have helped hotel security planners by allowing them to adopt a more overt policy of monitoring their properties and guests. CCTV has become a universal surveillance tool for both exterior and internal spaces, often with little regard to its utility when compared to well-trained and motivated patrolling security personnel.
Perhaps the most effective, if intrusive, hotel security systems were those operating in communist countries that placed an official on each floor, tasked with monitoring each guest’s every movement.
Despite fears of terrorist attacks and the potential for civil disorder spilling off the streets and into the lobby or pool area, most hotel managements seek to promote a calm and welcoming ambiance with security as unobtrusive to guests as the building’s location and status allow.
What is changing, however, is the physical architecture of the modern hotel as security factors are built into all areas of the property at the design stage. After many centuries of evolution towards open and inclusive hospitality, future trends seem likely to return the hotel to a modern version – however softened by design and décor – of the fortified sanctuary.
This page is an edited version of the Gavin Greenwood article featured in the September 2008 edition of International.
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Providing a safe haven