Category Archives: Risk Management

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 | April 1, 2011 · 5:54 am

Hospitality Industry Risk Management: "P3 Hospitality Risk Report – Knox Boxes" (Video)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvAGRwo1UPI]

Petra Risk Solutions’ Director of Risk Management, Todd Seiders , offers a P3 Hospitality Risk Report – ‘Knox Boxes’. 

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.

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by | March 31, 2011 · 10:05 am

Hospitality Industry Accident Risks: Texas Hotel Sued For Negligence In Guest "Slip And Fall" Injury

Pomrenke accuses Homewood Suites of negligence for not warning customers of the dangers of the wet floor or offering an alternative route around the area. She asks for an unspecified amount of money in damages for medical costs, loss of income and court fees. Pomrenke represents herself in this matter and asks for a jury trial.

A Harris County woman is suing a Memorial hotel after she allegedly dislocated her knee when she slipped on a wet lobby floor. Emily L. Pomrenke filed a lawsuit March 28 in Harris County District Court against Homewood Suites Hilton-Austin South.

According to the petition, Pomrenke was a guest of the Homewood Suites in April 2009. As she was walking in the hotel lobby with her son in the early afternoon, Pomrenke says, she slipped on the wet marble floor that had just been cleaned by the hotel staff. She alleges she dislocated her knee, bruised her tailbone and tore a retina in her right eye in the fall. Pomrenke claims an accident report was written up by the hotel manager and that she received a phone call from the hotel’s insurance carrier, which told her Homewood Suites would take full responsibility for the accident.

For more:  http://www.ultimatememorial.com/stories/239385-memorial-hotel-named-in-slip-and-fall-claim

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by | March 28, 2011 · 12:10 pm

Hospitality Industry Legal Compliance Issues: Hotels Must Be Compliant With "Americans With Disabilities Act" (ADA) Regulations Including "Mobility Issues" For "Devices Other Than Wheelchairs"

Federal law requires hotels to give people with mobility issues access to their properties, including allowing them to use devices other than wheelchairs as long as they do not raise legitimate safety concerns. The type, size and speed of the device, along with the amount of pedestrian traffic all factor into the decision.

One major change deals with the information available to people making room reservations. The idea is that people with disabilities should be able to book hotel rooms with the same efficiency, immediacy and convenience as those who do not need accessible guest rooms. The provision applies whether people are making reservations by phone, in person, on a website or though a third-party provider such as a travel agent or OTA.

Hotels must identify and describe the hotel’s accessible features in enough detail so potential guests can determine if the hotel can meet their needs, McCullough said.

Hotels also have an obligation to hold accessible guest rooms for people with disabilities unless all other guestrooms of that type have been rented. For example, McCullough said, if a hotel has 25 double-bed rooms and two are designated accessible, the reservation service must rent all 23 of non-accessible before it rents the two to people without disabilities. The rule does not apply to unique rooms such as a penthouse or bridal suite.

The difficulty is making sure that the reservation system accommodates this requirement, since the rule applies to reservations made through all channels.

“That will be a technical hurdle for your companies to leap over within the 11 months,” McCullough said. “I hope you are working on this particular issue.”

Another change requires that hotels honor a specific guest room request from customers with disabilities, even if it’s a policy of a hotel to not hold specific rooms.

For more:  http://www.hotelinteractive.com/article.aspx?articleid=20172

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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 | March 24, 2011 · 7:42 am

Hotel Industry Employee Injury Risks: Video From The "Health And Safety Authority" In Ireland Demonstrates "Risk Factors" Associated With Housekeepers Handling Of Laundry

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWyqLuBRuao]

  • Manual Handling Case Study 15 Handling Hotel Linen
  • On Screen Text: Manual Handling: Handling of linen in a hotel bedroom
  • Hotel employee removing linen from hotel bedroom
  • Scene 1:
    A hotel employee has just finished changing the linen on a bed. He walks out of the hotel room and down a corridor to throw the linen into an already-full black bag. He then throws the bag over his shoulder and down the corridor further, and throws the black bag into a lift. The lift is already full of other black linen bags.
  • On Screen Text:
    Need to carry out a risk assessment of this task
    Look at how the job is carried out
    Collect information: Load weight, etc
    Identify risk factors with the job
    Make changes to improve the job
  • On Screen Text:
    Risk Factors/Problems
  • Scene 2:
    Still image of character throwing the bag into the lift. Large Red “X” marks indicate the risk factors with the job.
    Load is too heavy
    Load is too large
    Difficult to grasp
    Physical effort is too strenuous
    Bending and twisting of the trunk
  • On Screen Text:
    The new system of work: Assess risk to reduce and reorganise manual handling
  • Scene 3:
    The hotel employee put the used bed linen into a linen trolley, rolls the trolley out of the room and down the corridor to the waiting lift. He rolls the trolley into the lift.
  • On Screen Text:
    Manual Handling : Assess to avoid, reduce or reorganise

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by | March 20, 2011 · 12:04 pm

Hotel Industry Pool Risks: Texas Hotel Indoor Pool Chlorination System Sickens Dozens Of Guests

Dozens of people, mostly children, were treated for unknown respiratory ailments Saturday after swimming in a South Lubbock hotel pool.

First responders set up a medical triage in front of Embassy Suites hotel, Slide Road and South Loop 289, to treat 24 people who started having trouble breathing while in and around the hotel’s indoor swimming pool.

None of the patients’ ailments were considered life-threatening, said Chris Teague, director of Lubbock EMS.

Investigators with the city and Fire Marshal’s Office believe the problem happened when an automatic pool chlorination system released too much of the cleaning agent into the water, said Elliot Eldredge with the Lubbock Fire Marshal’s Office.

Several parents and children who were in the pool area at about 5 p.m. said they noticed an overwhelming smell of chlorine coming from the pool.

Many of the children in the pool started coughing and immediately evacuated the room.

For more:  http://lubbockonline.com/local-news/2011-03-20/dozens-treated-respiratory-ailments-south-lubbock-hotel-pool

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by | March 18, 2011 · 8:19 am

Hotel Industry Accident Risks: Guests At Two Florida Hotels Are Critically Injured And Die In Falls At Properties

The Auburn Villager has confirmed that Mary Beth Goodner, an Auburn University student and long-time Auburn resident, has died in an accident in Key West, Fla., during AU’s spring break. Allyson Crean, public information officer for the Key West Police Department, said the investigation is still open and the police report is not yet available.

  • Crean said Goodner, 22, fell down a spiral staircase at the hotel where she was staying in Key West. The call came in to the police department about 3:30 a.m., and Goodner was pronounced dead at the hospital this morning.

Authorities say a man is in serious condition after falling five floors from an Orlando hotel. Orange County Fire Rescue responded to the Friday incident at the Hilton Orlando near International Drive and State Road 528.

  • The man was taken to a nearby hospital. No additional details on the situation were available, except that the hotel doesn’t have balconies

For more:  http://www.auburnvillager.com/story.html?1300391487005367

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/18/2121728/man-falls-5-floors-from-orlando.html##ixzz1Gy5Lt3XL

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by | March 17, 2011 · 6:27 pm

Hotel Industry Credit Card Security: "Cyber Criminals" Steal Credit Card Data On Hotel Computer Systems That Lack Critical Firewalls

Cyber criminals are systematically attacking systems that store credit card data, including Point-of-Sale and Property Management Systems. The criminal organizations are highly structured and integrated with the world’s organized crime rings.

Detailed forensic analysis by law enforcement agencies and specialized private-sector security practices, as well as by security departments at major hotel groups around the world, leave little doubt that the attacks on hotels are highly targeted and effective.

Many hoteliers believe they are not vulnerable because they use Point-of-Sale and Property Management Systems that have been validated as conforming to the latest PCI security standards. Unfortunately this is far from the case. Even such validated systems can be vulnerable if the hotel operates them in an unsecured manner. Leading forensics firms agree that the most important security measures are those that keep cyber criminals from getting inside the hotel network in the first place. Once inside, there are many ways for them to steal the data, even if the PMS or POS system itself is secure.

  • Eliminate EVERY default password on EVERY machine on your network – server, workstation, router, firewall, and any other device that has a password. The most important machines to check are the ones you think are NOT vulnerable, such as a PC on an engineer’s desk for monitoring building systems, or the PC in the parking garage attendant’s office, or the one in a closet running your keycard system.
  • Eliminate holes in remote access to systems inside your network. Remote access by vendors is an essential part of support for many hotel systems. The data thieves know this, and they know how to use it to get inside your network. They know all the default passwords, and they have even been known to steal master customer lists, complete with current passwords, from vendors.
  • If you were to store stacks of money in plain sight in an exit stairwell, you would expect to be robbed. Operating without an Internet firewall is just as risky. Yet many hotels, especially smaller ones, don’t have a firewall. If you are connected to the Internet without one, then people you don’t know, from around the world and many with malicious intent, are reaching into your network.

For more:  http://www.traveldailynews.com/pages/show_page/42199-Hotel-associations-issue-joint-statement-on-credit-card-security

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by | March 16, 2011 · 4:29 pm

Hotel Industry Credit Card Security Risks: Major Hotel Industry Associations Issue "Joint Statements" On Actions To Prevent Cyber-Crime

 Three major hotel industry associations, including the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA), Hotel Technology Next Generation (HTNG), and Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP) today issued the following joint statement to hotels regarding organized cyber crime attacks on credit card data. It identifies actions that hotels — and not their system vendors — need to take immediately in order to minimize their vulnerabilities and to avoid the potential for hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs and fines that typically result when just a single hotel system is breached.

  • Cyber criminals are systematically attacking systems that store credit card data
  • Criminal organizations are highly structured and integrated with the world’s organized crime rings
  • Attacks on hotels are highly targeted and effective
  • Many hoteliers believe they are not vulnerable because they use Point-of-Sale and Property Management Systems that have been validated as conforming to the latest PCI security standards.
  • The most important security measures are those that keep cyber criminals from getting inside the hotel network in the first place
  • Once inside, there are many ways for them to steal the data, even if the PMS or POS system itself is secure.

The three actions are:

  1. Eliminate EVERY default password on EVERY machine on your network — server, workstation, router, firewall, and any other device that has a password.
  2. Eliminate holes in remote access to systems inside your network
  3. Get a firewall and configure it properly. Operating without an Internet firewall is just as risky. Yet many hotels, especially smaller ones, don’t have a firewall

For more:  http://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/154000320/4050609.html

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