While the vast majority of hotel stays occur without incident, the importance of reviewing accommodation risks has been highlighted in recent years by numerous terrorist attacks against hotels.
The business world has seen increases in visits to developing, higher risk countries due to the commercial opportunities at hand. Perhaps taking business travellers to locations with a greater level risk than ever before. But are the safety and security considerations of employees keeping pace with this change? Research from Ipsos MORI suggests not: in a survey of more than 700 organisations around the world, they found that only 19% of organisations implemented safety and security checks for hotels/ accommodation in 2017.
For those companies who have implemented safety and security checks, it is uncertain how robust these are: often these checks can be rudimentary – linked to room access, fire response, and anonymity provided at front desk. They frequently overlook factors beyond basic security checks such as emergency response capability, verification and vetting of staff, or indeed the location of the hotel itself.