Safe Stay 2018

The first edition of Safe Stay 2018 event took place in London at Cavendish Conference Centre on April 27 and gathered professionals who give great importance to safety and security in tourism, who share their practical knowledge with enthusiasm, who are interested in broadening their insights and keeping up with new trends to prevent loss and secure their guests. The event was attended by General Managers, Health and Safety Directors, Managers and Heads of Security, Security consultants...

The conference programme was composed of panel discussions, case studies, presentations and practical workshops which covered topics such as training and motivating your staff, securing the budget and ROI, planning and managing guest and staff safety, crisis management techniques, to name a few. The audience was very engaged in the panel discussions, asked many questions, while speakers and panellists came to interesting conclusions, such as: „Guests of your hotel will look at the staff when an incident occurs, and your staff will need to show them what to do“ pointed out Craig McMahon, Business Engagement and Hotel Liaison at the City of Westminster Police. Tim Levitan from The London Edition emphasised in his presentation that „as hoteliers with specialty in loss prevention, rather than just security in the hotel, we need to focus on people, not policies“, while Peter Milewski from Melia Hotels International concluded in his presentation that „if your staff can handle a relatively small vandalism threat effectively, then they will be able to step up if a major crime, such as terrorism, occurs“.

At Safe Stay 2018, special emphasis was placed on the demands of corporate guests, that is - how important security policies and standards are while choosing a hotel. Several ideas came up on how to attract corporate guests and one was: “Why not have a star rating for security?” (Simon Whitehouse, The Security Institute). The importance of closer cooperation between the security department and sales was also emphasised - better communication between these two areas is an imperative in order to promote a safer hotel with a fully trained and prepared staff which will be able to act on time, not just react.

As final conclusion, we can all agree with Tim Molden from The Savoy and his statement that “Security can’t be ignored anymore”. In the era of more natural disasters, terrorist attacks, vandalism, cyber security issues, we can’t afford to take safety for granted.

For more information check out our post show report