[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_-zWMA6JsQ]
Women seek safety, convenience and comfort when they travel. A D.C. hotel offers a “women only” floor along with other amenities targeting the growing sector of women travelers.
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Filed under Guest Issues, Liability, Management And Ownership, Privacy, Risk Management, Training
“…Starting today, the welcome screens on 1.2 million hotel television sets in Marriott, Hilton, Sheraton, Holiday Inn and other hotels in the USA will show a short public service announcement from DHS (Department of 
Homeland Security). The 15-second spot encourages viewers to be vigilant and call law enforcement if they witness something suspicious during their travels…”
During the PSA, which starts with a woman exiting a yellow taxi in front of a train station, a narrator says, “Maybe you see something suspicious. Can you be sure? If you see something, say something to authorities.”
The PSA, which will be interspersed with other messages on the welcome screen, will be the same in all 5,400 hotels that LodgeNet serves. It ends by telling viewers to contact “local authorities.”
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says that reaching the “millions of guests that stay at hotels and motels each year is a significant step in engaging the full range of partners in our Homeland Security efforts.”
The federal government gained access to hotel TV sets by forming a partnership with the hotel industry’s largest association — the American Hotel & Lodging Association — which connected DHS with LodgeNet, the industry’s largest TV-content provider.
By entering hotels at a time when the hospitality industry is on the rebound, the government has the power to tap a growing, captive audience. Recent research from LodgeNet says 98% of hotel guests turn on their hotel TV, and the average guest keeps it on for more than three hours per day.
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Filed under Guest Issues, Management And Ownership, Privacy, Training
 “…Hersha Hospitality Management LP has filed suit against two former employees and their new employer, claiming the former employees allegedly could have stole thousands of confidential documents before leaving to take their new jobs…”
 
In a 17 October filing in U.S. District Court, Hersha said the employees engaged in a “web of deception†in their final days at Hersha before leaving for positions at The Procaccianti Group, a private real-estate investment company. Before leaving, Hersha said in the filing, the two recruited two other key Hersha employees to also leave. The two denied recruiting the other executives, Hersha said in the filing.
By way of a computer forensic examination, Hersha also found the two former employees potentially stole “thousands†of sensitive computer files. “(Hersha) is now faced with the real possibility that its direct competitor, TPG, could have access to its most important competitive secrets and strategies,†Hersha officials wrote in the filing. “Upon information and belief, TPG encouraged this conduct by offering the former (Hersha) employees substantial raises in a blatant effort to harm (Hersha) by raiding its top managers and by inducing them to commit wrongs.â€
A call to TPG president and CEO James A. Procaccianti was returned by the company’s director of communications Ralph Izzi, who said it is TPG’s policy to not comment on pending litigation. A Message left by HotelNewsNow.com with Hersha president and CEO Naveen P. Kakarla was not returned by deadline Friday.
For more:Â http://www.hospitalitynet.org/external/4053560.html
Filed under Crime, Labor Issues, Liability, Management And Ownership, Privacy, Risk Management, Technology, Theft
“…74% of executives say hotel workers need to treat them with respect if they want to keep their business…according to a survey released last week…”
What comes through loud and clear is that an executive traveler isn’t asking for high-priced service as much as high touch,” said Shawn Abaspor, chief executive of Vitesse Worldwide.
One of the world’s largest hotel companies is now letting guests post reviews on its hotel websites — even guests who aren’t happy with their stay. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, whose hotel brands include Sheraton, Westin and St. Regis, recently unveiled a new feature to let guests write reviews that will appear on the hotel website. And the hotel company has encouraged guests to be honest.
Online hotel review sites are plentiful. But until now, hotels themselves rarely — if ever — post reviews by guests, said Kathryn Potter, a spokeswoman for the American Hotel & Lodging Assn., the trade group for the nation’s hotel owners.
“This is the first I’ve ever heard of a hotel posting reviews on their own site,” she said.
Only guests who type in their reservation confirmation number can submit reviews, and Starwood officials promise not to block negative reviews.
On the website for the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort in Dana Point, most of the reviews are positive. But one mentions a problem with service. “When we first arrived, we waited five minutes for someone from valet to take care of us,” wrote a guest from North Carolina.
For more:Â http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-travel-briefcase-20111031,0,6754845.story
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 “…Firefighters scoured the hotel to ensure all guests and hotel personnel were evacuated. Another group of firefighters tried to determine the source of the fire, and a third group worked on freeing the pair trapped in the 
elevator….”
Firefighters evacuated several hundred guests at a 15-floor Hyatt Regency after two of the hotel’s floors began filling with smoke after an electrical fire, officials said. The incident was reported at 5 p.m., and seven engines, two ladder trucks and a battalion chief from Orange County Fire Authority responded to the hotel at 17900 Jamboree Road.
A man and woman were trapped in an elevator between the second and third floors, Orange County Fire Capt. Marc Stone said. They were freed at 6 p.m. According to Stone, fire personnel were attempting to locate the source of the fire. Smoke filled the second and third floors of the hotel, he said.
It was unclear whether the electrical fire melted down some equipment or if the equipment overheated to cause the fire, Stone said.
For more:Â http://www.ocregister.com/news/fire-324481-hotel-smoke.html
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Filed under Fire, Guest Issues, Insurance, Liability, Management And Ownership, Risk Management, Training
 “There was an elevator malfunction… Our security team responded to the incident immediately… All guests were safely evacuated… We are ensuring the elevator car in question undergoes a thorough inspection…”
 They got into an elevator and headed down from the rooftop terrace, but when another couple got in on the 16th floor, the compartment dropped and plummeted eight floors before stopping.
The group, which also included British actor Guy Burnet, actress Rosie Fellner and comedian Seth Herzog, was leaving the afterparty for new movie Janie Jones at the Gramercy Park Hotel in Manhattan on Thursday night (27Oct11).
Janie Jones director Rosenthal tells Nymag.com, “We’ve all had a couple of drinks… and we’re just piling into the elevator… Everyone is yelling and hooting… (The couple) decide to jump in, and as soon as they jump in, the thing starts plummeting down. His girlfriend is lucky she didn’t get killed because her foot was barely inside the door when the elevator dropped. I think we fell eight stories before the emergency brake went off. We initially thought we’d gone all the way to the basement and bounced on the springs.”
Emergency services were called to the scene, but the frustrated group decided not to wait, and took action themselves, climbing out of a gap in the doors onto a floor.
For more:Â http://www.hollywood.com/news/Actors_trapped_in_elevator_fall/8028652
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“…The man’s credit-card company had alerted him that someone using his card had booked a room there…”
“…Police say the search turned up cell phones, lap top computers, computer hard drives, iPod touches, electronic storage devices, magnetic card readers, routers, hotspots and computer peripherals…”
Police have arrested two men and say a search has turned up evidence that there may be more victims of identity theft. Police say they have yet to determine how many vicitms there might be.
Just after noon on Tuesday, East Precinct patrol officers met a man in the lobby of the Silver Cloud Hotel in the 1100 block of Broadway. Officers went to the room and found two men.
In the room, they saw several cell phones, laptops, a WiFi hotspot, router and papers with credit-card numbers.
Detectives with the fraud, forgery and financial explotation unit got a warrant to search the room and the suspects’ vehicle.
For more:Â http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Seattle-cops-may-have-busted-identity-theft-ring-2239352.php
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“…43 of the 80 employees at Embassy Suites Irvine filed formal complaints with the Labor Commissioner about the rest-period issue. Of the seven hearings that have so far been held, all seven workers received awards 
averaging $5,261 each…”
HEI Hospitality LLC, which manages the 293-room hotel, was recently ordered by a state Labor Commissioner hearing officer to pay $36,827 in back wages and penalties to full-time housekeepers who were denied 10-minute rest periods. The breaks are a legally mandated minimum standard in California.
Those housekeepers earned an average of $8.92 an hour before taxes. Their work included scrubbing toilets and showers, vacuuming, mopping floors on their knees, changing blankets and sheets, cleaning out microwaves, refrigerators and coffeemakers, taking out the trash, wiping down mirrors and counters and changing shower curtains.
The housekeepers said HEI would assign them workloads of 16 or 17 rooms to clean in an eight-hour shift, threaten them with discipline if they did not finish all their work on time and give them extra work such as cleaning hallways if they were seen standing around. Several of them were never made aware, as is required by law, that they had a right to take the breaks.
For more:Â http://www.ocregister.com/news/hei-323823-employees-workers.html
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“.. family says in a lawsuit that they were spied on while taking showers last year in an Albuquerque hotel…”
“…named as defendants are Wyndham Worldwide Hotels, a parent company of Ramada Inn, which used to operate the motel, as well as Bhakta, Gonzales and another employee, Gibi George, who had access to the maintenance corridor. The complaint says all three of them subsequently left their employment at the hotel…”
Eric and Evangeline Vigil and their two children — a 17-year-old son and an 8-year-old daughter — checked into the Ramada Inn, 2015 Menaul Blvd. NW, on April 23, 2010, during a weekend visit to Albuquerque to celebrate the teen’s birthday, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in state District Court.
The complaint says the wife was given a “special rate” for Room 135 when she and the children checked in. The hotel staff were unaware that they were later joined by her husband, the lawsuit says.
While taking separate showers the next morning, each family member heard noises coming from behind the wall of the shower stall. When the father examined the area around the fixtures, the complaint says, he noticed a hole under the faucet.
“As Eric Vigil looked into the hole under the faucet, he saw an eye staring at him from behind the wall,” it says. “Eric Vigil immediately hit the tub surround and shouted. He heard someone attempt to leave the area from behind the wall.”
The complaint says when Vigil went into the hallway, he noticed a maintenance door next to his room door.
According to the complaint, the general manager, Sanketkunar Bhakta, told Vigil “the maintenance guy” had been fixing pipe behind the door, but after Vigil called police, Sanketkunar told the officers that he and another employee, Sergio Gonzales, were fixing a sewer line. Subsequently, Bhakta changed his story and claimed that he and Gonzales were fixing television cables in the corridor, the complaint says.
An inspection of the maintenance corridor found insulation had been removed from the wall behind the shower stall “to afford a clear line of sight into the shower stall” and that a plastic bucket was placed there to provide a place to sit while spying through the peephole, the complaint says.
For more:Â http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/Suit–Family-spied-on-via-peephole-in-hotel-shower
Filed under Crime, Guest Issues, Labor Issues, Liability, Management And Ownership, Risk Management, Training
“…Some hotel Internet service providers are proposing a solution that offers tiered Wi-Fi service. The lowest level, suitable for basic Internet requirements like checking e-mail, would be free, but other levels would be priced depending on bandwidth requirements…”
 “… iPads consume four times more Wi-Fi data per month than the average smartphone…”
Largely because of the broad use of iPads and other mobile tablets, which are heavy users of video streaming, the guest room Wi-Fi networks that most hotels thought they had brought up to standard just a few years ago are now often groaning under user demands.
“The iPad is the fastest-selling device in consumer electronics history, and because of it the demand placed on any public place Wi-Fi system has gone up exponentially in the last year and a half,†said David W. Garrison, the chief executive of iBAHN, a provider of systems for the hotel and meetings industries.
This means more hotel customers are unhappy with their Internet connections. Hotel owners, meanwhile, who are digging out from a two-year slump caused by the recession, will probably have to invest more money to provide more bandwidth.
For travelers, it may mean still another fee, since hotels will be paying their own Internet bills.
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