Tag Archives: Crime

by | July 28, 2015 · 9:56 am

Hospitality Industry Conference Update: “2015 CTSSA Fraud Conference”

The 2015 California Tourism Safety and Security Conference is being held Thursday, September 17, 2015 at the beautiful Island Hotel in Newport Beach, California.  This half day conference is centered around fraud4d30d4d05aa65b796643a506d93fc01a and forgery detection and prevention at your business. With subject matter experts instructing in hands-on, nuts and bolts training format, you will see first hand how criminals forge fraudulent credit cards, wash checks, and take advantage of your unsuspecting business.

Together with several California law enforcement, security, and tourism industry organizations, the Association plans and hosts the nation’s largest training conference dedicated to issues of safety & security for visitors and visitor venues.   The annual conference features timely new training topics each year, presented by experienced practitioners and subject matter experts.   Content and logistics are planned and coordinated by a committee of CTSSA volunteers, chaired by Dave Wiggins.

The event includes a full day of training, plus the Tech Expo which showcases emerging tools & technologies, as well as a keynote address, and hosted luncheon and cocktail reception.   The conference has been praised for its timely and relevant “nuts-n-bolts” training content, as well as its valuable networking opportunities.  The conference has been held at various locations throughout California.  Participants come from all across the United States.  Participation is by pre-registration, and is open only to qualified working professionals.

For more: http://bit.ly/1Mt3G6e

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by | July 22, 2015 · 9:40 am

Hospitality Industry Legal Update: “Northwest Dallas Hotel is ‘hub for drug use, prostitution and violent crime,’ Says City Hall”

The city of Dallas has had enough, and late Thursday filed suit against the owners of the motel that looks decent enough on the outside but is anything but on the inside, according to the City Attorney’s Office. The city wants the court to order the owners to clean it up immediately or face thousand-dollar-a-day penalties until the laundry list of problems are remedied.

In early December, two men were shot and another man was injured (after he jumped out a window to escape being shot) at the Orange Extended Stay Motel on Finnell Street in Northwest Dallas, near Northwest Highway and N. Stemmons Freeway. Several residents told our Naheed Rajwani at the time they feel unsafe at the Orange and that, perhaps, it was time to move away from the crime-ridden (and poorly reviewed) hotel. Said one woman, “I’m scared, and I don’t want to end up losing my life being in this area.”

She had good reason to be concerned: On May 30, someone was shot to death at the hotel.

The city of Dallas has had enough, and late Thursday filed suit against the owners of the motel that looks decent enough on the outside but is anything but on the inside, according to the City Attorney’s Office. The city wants the court to order the owners — Carrollton-based Dynasty Hotel Group — to clean it up immediately or face thousand-dollar-a-day penalties until the laundry list of problems are remedied.

“The relatively well kept facade of this business belies the abhorrent physical conditions, habitual drug offenses, and violent crime that have pervaded its interior and for which the property has become known,” says the suit, signed by Assistant City Attorney Melissa Miles.

For more: http://bit.ly/1KkzKtx

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by | July 20, 2015 · 11:10 am

Hospitality Industry Management Update: “6 Ways to Prepare For the Next Downturn”

“Providing an exceptional guest experience is the best investment any hotelier can make.20150714_downturn_feature This is why we as a brand have rolled out a membership-wide training program all about the importance of unlocking the personalities of the staff and the story of the hotel when guests stay,” she said.

Good times continue to roll for the global hospitality sector with growth in the travel and tourism industry expected to increase by 3.9% this year, according to Ernst & Young’s “Global hospitality insights” report for 2015.

But in the cyclical fashion of the industry, the upswing can’t last forever.

So what should hoteliers be doing now to prepare for the inevitable down cycle, and how much can investing in their products and services now set them up for not so good times in the future?

For Eric Danziger, president and CEO of Debut Hotel Group and Hampshire Hotels Management, preparation now is absolutely key to success in a future downturn.

“Hoteliers should be pragmatic, preparing for when it is a bit more difficult to get those much-needed guests through a property’s doors,” he said. “Hoteliers that are prepared with a product and with services that guests value, appreciate and are willing to pay for will be ahead of the game.”

For more: http://bit.ly/1IflBgM

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by | July 15, 2015 · 11:10 am

Hospitality Industry Legal Update: “DOJ Releases Supplemental Guidance on Service Animals Under the Americans With Disabilities Act”

“Public accommodations and facilities covered by the ADA (including, but not limited to,those noted above) are well-advised to review the new guidance,Seal_of_the_United_States_Department_of_Justice.svg which provides practical insight into these and other thorny issues that frequently arise with regard to service animal access.”

With the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) just two weeks away, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) has released a new technical assistance document addressing frequently asked questions regarding service animals and the ADA.   This additional guidance is intended to be read in conjunction with the DOJ’s previous July 2011 technical assistance on Revised ADA Requirements: Service Animals, which remains in full effect.

The DOJ has stated that this additional guidance is meant to further assist people with disabilities as well as places of public accommodation covered by the ADA – such as retail shops, restaurants, hotels, medical facilities, theaters and event spaces, and other places open to the public – in understanding how the ADA’s service animal provisions apply to them. Among other topics, the additional guidance addresses in detail:

For more: http://bit.ly/1e0XPqP

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by | July 13, 2015 · 11:51 am

Hospitality Industry Legal Update: “Are You Breaking the Law by Recording Calls?”

“Regardless of the content of the call, hoteliers should be ensuring that they are using automatic disclosures—in order to obtain consumer consenthotel-phone—if using an automatic recording system. If an operator becomes the target of one of these consumer privacy class actions, taking an aggressive approach and attacking these claims as incongruent with the legislative purpose and intent behind the respective statute is a recommended.”

In the past few years, class action plaintiffs have recovered billions of dollars in punitive damages by exploiting strict liability laws that punish businesses for failing to properly notify customers when a phone call is being recorded.

Under the Federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act and similar state statutes, businesses including hotels are prohibited from using certain tactics when telemarketing or making calls to solicit potential guests or customers. Hotels and other businesses are precluded from making calls or using any kind of prerecorded message, unless the caller has obtained a recipient’s prior express consent in writing or electronically.

Additionally, hoteliers are prohibited from making calls to residences before 8 a.m. and after 9 p.m., and a future hotel guest calling to confirm a reservation also must be notified if the call is recorded. Hence, under these laws, if a hotel receptionist in Montana receives a call from a California resident to confirm a reservation but never notifies the recipient that the call is being recorded, it could result in damages ranging from $500 to $5,000 per call under federal and state laws.

This seemingly innocuous business practice of recording customer service calls without providing some variation of the oft-heard disclosure, “This call may be monitored or recorded for quality assurance purposes” has the potential to financially cripple a business.

For more: http://bit.ly/1CBRlu6

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by | July 10, 2015 · 10:09 am

Hospitality Industry Legal Update: “Patel v L.A. and What it Means for Hotel Operators”

“It was being used to circumvent case law and proper court procedure to obtain privacy information,1436387202_JULY ALB Patel v LA sidebar pic” Seiders said. “The police were using these local laws to avoid having to go through judicial review. I think that’s where it became abusive.

More than a decade ago, a group of hotel owners sued Los Angeles. Now their actions have caused reverberations in hotels throughout the country.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 22 in City of Los Angeles v. Patel that the police practice of asking for a hotel’s guest registry without a warrant is unconstitutional.

“It’s certainly providing privacy protection and extending it to companies, both to the company owner and the guests that are there. It’s certainly a win for the hotels,” Attorney Dana Kravetz said.

“This is going to have widespread impact – and already has had widespread impact – on a host of cities and really the industry at large. It’s a powerful decision. It really sets it out pretty clearly as to what the police can or cannot do.”

This ruling goes beyond Los Angeles as so many other U.S. cities have similar ordinances, said Kravetz, managing partner of Michelman & Robinson and chair of the law firm’s hospitality group.

“It’s really a great day for the hotel industry,” said Frank Weiser, the attorney for the group of hotel owners (Patel). “It’s a great day for businesses throughout America.”

For more: http://bit.ly/1L35AJP

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by | June 18, 2015 · 8:34 am

Hospitality Industry Technology Update: “Hoteliers Need to Own Their Property Website”

While low cost and minimal fees are an appealing draw, rental websites are a classic example of a scenario in which one gets what one pays for, but in this case, possibly even less since the ownership of the site and what hoteliers are putting funds toward is not theirs at the end of the day.hotel website This doesn’t even take into account the additional shortcomings seen from rented hotel websites such as no search engine optimization, little service or support following the initial set-up, a limited number of site pages, photos or content and so on.

The hospitality industry has seen a number of agencies offering hoteliers a low-cost, low-budget website that they can rent. It has been widely noted that these agencies, which promise all of the bells and whistles associated with investing thousands of dollars and development resources, often leave hoteliers in the lurch after the deal is done.

Why? A number of reasons, but perhaps the most important is that agencies that rent hotel websites do not provide hoteliers with true ownership of their content which becomes problematic as explained below.

It should come as no surprise that a hotel’s digital assets should be owned by the property, however, the subject of digital ownership seems to be overlooked by hoteliers doing business with rental agencies. Hoteliers’ ownership should reach past the physical ownership of their property to include their digital content and here is why:

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by | June 16, 2015 · 10:16 am

Hospitality Industry Management Update: “Protect Your Property from Common Industry Scams”

To prevent any type of scam, Bragiel suggests that hoteliers establish reliable contacts within banks, businesses, and the hotel’s credit card processor. That way, if questions of authenticity arise,Scam the front desk staff can turn to trusted sources. “When in doubt, we always encourage our members to check with the folks they have relationships with,” says Bragiel

It could be disguised as a typical guest interaction: Someone checks in under a corporate account that does not require a credit card, only for management to later realize the guest was not an employee of the company. Or, it could be someone whose credit card fails to go through, so he or she provides the clerk with a false authorization code. Both of these scenarios are common lodging industry scams, pulled by con artists who exploit front desk protocols to get a free stay, and oftentimes managers don’t even know what happened until the guest is long gone.

Fraud is a growing issue in the United States, with retailers losing $32 million in 2014 to credit card scamming, up from $23 million in 2013, according to a recent Business Insider report. For hoteliers to avoid becoming a victim of one of these cons, it is important that they not only recognize the signs of common industry scams but also learn how to be proactive in protecting a property from vulnerability.

For more: http://bit.ly/1GKYRTh

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by | June 11, 2015 · 9:14 am

Hospitality Industry Management Update: “3 Ways the Hotel Industry is Changing”

“We’re under attack right now,” he said. “We’re under direct attack. We’ve got Expedia and Orbitz planning a merger. They have 75% of the online marketplace. This is like the Klingons and Romulans teaming up together.”3 ways hotel industry changing…David Kong, president and CEO of Best Western International, said he is not surprised to see consolidation among online travel agencies considering that some hotel companies are consolidating, too.

J. Allen Smith has a problem.

“I keep feeling: ‘What should I be worried about?’” the president and CEO of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts said Tuesday during a general session “The leaders forum” panel at the 37th annual NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference.

“You’re mindful of a plethora of risks. None of them seems to be materializing in a way that seems to be disrupting anything, but you have to be mindful of them,” he said

Smith’s comment succinctly summed up the sentiment on Day Two of the NYU Conference. With the industry hitting on all cylinders, it can be difficult to find things to be concerned about.

Difficult, but not impossible it turns out, as top leaders from around the industry discussed their biggest concerns in this part of the cycle. One of the recurring themes throughout the three-hour long series of morning general sessions had to do with how the hotel industry itself is in transition.

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by | June 1, 2015 · 11:51 am

Hospitality Industry Risk Update: “Is Your Hotel Properly Collecting and Preserving Incident Related Evidence ?”

Videos can make or break a case. For example, in one case, video footage clearly showed that the plaintiff initiated the fist fight that was at the heart of his lawsuit.collecting evidence The video would have absolved the hotel from all liability, but the hotel failed to properly preserve this key piece of evidence.As a result, the case had to be settled instead of vigorously defended. Further, as digital surveillance systems continue to become the industry standard, judges have been less forgiving when it comes to claims that the pertinent footage was either lost or never preserved.

By the time a case reaches an attorney’s desk, all too often pertinent evidence either has been lost — or was never collected in the first place. California’s statute of limitations for a personal lawsuit is two years; consequently, an attorney’s first involvement in an incident on your property usually happens more than two years after the incident has occurred. If your hotel or resort has not properly gathered and preserved evidence, it becomes very challenging to recreate what transpired. Hence, it is imperative that; your hotel have formal written evidence retention policies; that first responders and security teams are properly trained on how to gather the evidence; and that hotel staff take steps to ensure that this evidence is preserved. Failing to collect and preserve evidence can turn a defensible case into a major settlement.

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