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In light of recent events in the USA I wonder if many hotels there have metal detectors at entrances. All the major hotels in the middle east and China have metal detectors where you take your belongings vs before you check in.Maybe the recent massacre in las vegas May ha been prevented. is there much resistance in the American hotel industry to this?
I've never seen metal detectors in use in China but the middle east and India for sure - but there very real fear is terrorism and they focus also on explosives, probably more than firearms. India western business hotels are forts, including walls around the premises and searching entering cars with undercarriage mirrors.
But in the US in spite of the large media coverage of events like what happened in Las Vegas, they are still statistically insignificant in regards to overall homicide rates. Plus, most Americans are an independent bunch and are not comfortable with that amount of security - look how much we complain about TSA!
In Las Vegas also, you have the hotel lobby and hotel entrance connected with the casino, where none hotel stayers, 1,000s of them, mix in with hotel guests. Many more gamblers than hotel guests in fact. You put metal detectors at the entrance and it will discourage all these gamblers eager to throw away money into casino slot machines.
Just how far do you think they should go in taking away privacy.
Consider, the staff checks your room and finds say Cocaine.
Will we then have each and every guest arrested.
Do you think a young lady wants hotel staff in Vegas finding her "marital aide"?
Is it really necessary to search through personal belongings to find out who is on Viagra.
Will the room searches be announced so you can be there... or will they take place only when the guest is away.
How long before a guest reports money missing from their room.
I'm sorry but "in my opinion" this has not been fully thought through.
EDIT: I nearly forgot. when a person places an item in the room safe, will staff be allowed to use their bypass code and check the contents?
I totally agree! I'm not saying it's right or that I agree with it, I'm just stating what they are now doing at Harrahs properties. And they are doing the checks as I just stayed there and it's their new policy.
The hard facts, Security does not generate money. It may save you some money, in liability, in losses, but in general do not make a profit. Security may implement x y and z post to cover problems, only to outsource the petty work, like checking trunks!
What happens when it hits the fan? That low paid, untrained security guy is not jumping on some explosives, or getting into a fire fight. Just last week, in the Parkside HS school shooting, people were actually critical of the school security guard not acting against an AR15. Security is not trained to get into battle.
Good thing this country, the US, is not up to par with the craziness that happens on the other side of the world.
Law of diminishing returns. Zero tolerance is unaffordable. Worldwide, there is maybe one terrorist incident a year in a hotel. How much would it cost to reduce one incidence to zero? There are 200,000 proper hotels, and that many more again if you count every hostel or inn. What would be the cost of absolytely eliminating the remotest possibility of a terrorist incident in every single one of them? It is you who will pay for it.
I just returned from Malaysia, where I stayed at a top notch, high end hotel (Marriott Kota Kinabalu). While there were no metal detectors at the entrance, you could only go to your floor (and the floors with the pools, spa, restaurant, etc.) via the elevator card key access system, which was a bit odd to me. I'm used to not being able to ride the elevator without a room key card, but it was another thing to only be able to access your floor with a room card, which makes things more difficult if traveling in a group where members are on different floors as was my situation.
ALL HARRAHS properties are now doing this, nationwide. You must allow hotel staff in your room once every 24 hours. If you don't comply than you will be removed from the property. If you don't like, than don't stay at a hotel owned by Harrahs.
I was at a Harrah's property last week and they did NOT enter my room the entire time. I wished they would have changed out my towels but they did not because I left my "room occupied" sign out.
Our apartment here in Thailand is same. The card opens the front door to the lobby, then opens another door to the guest area, then you put your card on the sensor in the elevator and it picks your floor for you there is no option to go to another floor. I also learned the hard way that you need said card to open the stairway door, I went out to the stairway landing to check our electric meter and it shut while I had no card or cell phone. Nine floors walking back down to the lobby to have security guard let me upstairs.
Key fobs are pretty common on lots of lower end guest houses now too, where you have a physical key to your room but a fob to open the front door of the building.
The last thing I worry about in a hotel is being shot or bombed by terrorists. And the first terrorists I'd worry about are the ones who know how to get through stock security systems complacently installed.
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