Even if pranks don’t physically hurt anyone, they can still be quite costly.
Several years ago in Nebraska, a prank caller phoned a national brand name hotel and caused them more than $100,000 in damages. The caller, acting as a hotel employee, convinced a guest to set off the sprinkler system after having said that a gas pipe had broken and the only way to avoid an explosion was to activate the sprinkler system. The resulting damage was approximately 5,000 gallons of water flooding the hotel, damaging several guest rooms and the hotel’s meeting space—all in all it took weeks to make the necessary repairs. To prevent this type of incident from happening to you, here are some suggestions to keep your hotel safe from pranksters and vandals.
Here are some suggestions:
- Control traffic and access to the property. Consider placing cones and fences to route traffic to pass within the view of the main office.
- Install proper outdoor lighting and remove potential “hiding spots.” Brighten parking lots, sidewalks, and hallways to properly see anyone (or thing) that may have hidden there in the past.
- Control building entrances. The fewer building entrances there are, the easier they are to monitor. (Building code requirements should always be met.)
- Install a video-monitoring system that covers, at the very least, the registration area. They may be a bit pricey, but there are many systems that are appropriate for the needs and costs of smaller hotels/motels.
- Ensure that callers cannot be transferred to rooms without knowing the names of the guests that are staying in that room.
Having the right commercial property and liability insurance policies can help to ensure you have the coverage you need. Contact the insurance team at Hoffman Brown Company; they can answer questions and review your insurance policies.
