|
| |
Smoke, Mirrors and Security Semantics
By Glenn Haussman
During a recent visit to a major
metropolitan hotel, I was again confronted by the senseless semantics of hotel
security. In the nearly six years since 9/11, hotels and airports have
purportedly beefed up security measures to ensure its guests are safe. Frankly,
that’s all a bunch of hogwash.
In fact, security measures are not even meant to realistically protect, they’re
in place to lull hotel guests into a false sense of safety. Of course, these
policies and procedures are also there to ensure the hotel’s owners aren’t
liable if there was a major security on their property. Now if I could only get
someone out there to admit it that to me. On the record would be great, but off
the record would at least be personally satisfying.
The truth is hotel security is a well coordinated two-step
amounting to nothing more than a masterful exercise in smoke and mirrors. It’s
meant to distract guests from realizing there is no such thing as absolute
security in the quasi public lodging space. It mollifies the Chicken Littles who
don’t bother to think things through.
To the hotel guest, today’s security measures are more inconvenient
than beneficial. There are too many arbitrary rules that put a salve on the
problem without addressing the real issue. Case in point: When I was visiting
that aforementioned major hotel, I was hoping to stow a piece of luggage at the
bell stand for the day while conducting business on site at a conference.
However, because of security issues they would not take my bag unless I was a
hotel guest. The reason was I could have placed a bomb into that suitcase.
The guy later admitted to me if I had simply lied and told them I
was a guest that would have been fine; they don’t check anyway. Instead of
accommodating me, I now had to schlep my suitcase with me all day. That’s
security semantics in action. But maybe I am wrong. Maybe mad bombers are so mad
they don’t think to either lie or just rent a room.
I also get a kick out of hotel security staff asking to see a room
key past a certain hour. Now I am no McGruff here, but you don’t have to be a
crime fighting dog with a genius IQ to either show up before they start asking
for room keys or show any old hotel room key. While the basis of this measure
makes sense on some level, real criminal culprits may just be clever enough to
even rent a room themselves (I sure hope terrorists don’t figure this out),
making this security endeavor moot. That’s more security semantics at work.
Then, in some larger cities, there are those guys who are paid to
look in your car’s trunk to make sure you’re not carrying a bomb, or a dead body
I suppose. Some of them even get that neat looking mirror thing that lets them
look on the underside of the vehicle. Neat stuff, but again it’s a useless
security measure. This one I simply don’t get at all because if I were crazy
enough to drive a bomb into a building, I’d just drive through the check point.
It’s semantics, semantics all day long.
Meanwhile, I continue to get stuck on long security lines at the
airport, where even with some recent improvements, security semantics are alive,
well and conspiring to inconvenience me for no real reason. My most favorite
pseudo security measure (trumping random searches of the aged and infirmed) is
the ban on liquids and gels in containers of more than three ounces. How can
this do anything except hassle the frequent traveler who doesn’t want to check
their bags so the airline can lose it? Since anyone can bring as many of these
little bottles as they’d like through security as long as they are in a
see-through bag, this measure means nothing. Boy they keep outdoing themselves.
But at least I get the sense they are headed in the right
direction. On August 4th, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) once
again allowed most types of lighters to be brought on board aircraft.
Previously, people got held up – which caused lengthier delays for everyone –
because someone forgot to (or purposely left) a lighter inside their carry-on
bag. According to the TSA they were confiscating 22,000 lighters a day and
disposing them at a cost of $4 million a year. The rub was of course that many
people still were able to get them through, rendering the ban useless. Finally
some sort of acknowledgement by someone in charge that current security measures
are a joke.
As an industry we really need to be honest with ourselves and admit
that there is no such thing as security in a free society. It’s a risk we take
so we can live the kind of life we do in what I’d say is already one pretty safe
and secure place.
I don’t really expect hoteliers to drop the red velvet ropes
anytime soon and not hassle me because I left my key in the room, but I would
appreciate a little more common sense. The next time I am at your hotel, just do
me a favor; hold onto my bag for a little while. I promise not to blow you up
and I might even be so kind to buy a glass of iced tea at the bar.
Courtesy of Hotel Interactive.
www.hotelinteractive.com.
|
|
Glenn
Haussman, Hotel Interactive's Editor In Chief, has been
specializing in the hospitality industry for more than 10 years. He often
speaks at lodging industry events, is quoted frequently as an expert
source by newspapers and is an adjunct professor at New York University.
|
|
