In September of 2022, Hurricane Ian slammed Southwest Florida, temporarily shuttering the Ritz Carlton Naples, the Naples Grand and the iconic South Seas Island Resort on Captiva Island. It was the costliest hurricane in Florida’s history, causing $112 billion in damages and is emblematic of our fragility in the face of extreme weather events.
Hotels, resorts and casinos are where guests seek refuge from the stresses of everyday life, yet your property is far from immune to some of the biggest threats of our time. Hospitality health and safety teams must contend with a range of threats including natural disasters like earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and wildfires, as well as crises such as bomb threats, protests and active shooter situations.
Hospitality health and safety should not only be a reactive endeavor. While preventing or preparing for every threat is impossible, proactive preparation and response can keep staff and guests safe through disruption. The quicker you’re alerted to a danger, the quicker you can respond, reducing the impact on operations and the guest experience.
Nearly all (90 percent) of executives believe a proactive approach to threat mitigation is important or extremely important, according to the 2024 OnSolve Global Risk Impact Report. Yet only 23 percent said their organization is proactive about identifying risk. What’s standing in the way? Forty-five percent of executives said inadequate threat monitoring and detection is the biggest barrier to improving their organization’s resilience.
How can hospitality health and safety teams overcome this obstacle? Top providers have found a critical event management (CEM) platform essential in detecting threats early and keeping both staff and employees safe and informed. It even helps elevate the guest experience during calm times by making it easy to communicate with employees and guests about routine information and events.
If you’re looking for a five-star rating when it comes to hotel guest safety and enjoyment, explore these three ways a CEM platform can help you protect your people and operations.
OnSolve Platform for Critical Event Management
Learn how a unified platform for event management helps organizations quickly detect and respond to threats.
1. Protect Your Staff, Guests and Property From Physical Threats.
Since 1980, 387 weather and climate disasters have hit the U.S. alone, each reaching or exceeding $1 billion in damages. Threats like active shooters and civil unrest are also ever-present. In fact, 99 percent of executives said their organization experienced a physical threat in the last 24 months.
When a hurricane’s path abruptly changes, barreling to your resort, or a gunman is on the loose near your hotel, your staff and guests depend on you to notify them and provide the vital instructions to keep them safe when every minute counts.
Create a 5-star Experience With a CEM Platform.
- Leverage historical risk data to identify the threats most likely to hit your properties. Create comprehensive preparation and response plans for the most common events, including training on safety protocols.
- Filter massive amounts of data and get alerted in real time about critical events that pose a threat to your people or property with AI-powered risk intelligence.
- Quickly view and understand looming dangers with an intuitive dashboard and map, make informed decisions fast and alert the right people with the tap of a button.
- Activate crisis response teams and collaborate in real time as an incident unfolds. Reduce response times to minimize downtime and damage and prioritize guest safety in hotels, resorts, etc.
2. Simplify and Strengthen Employee Communications.
With staff spread across a vast property or working from far-flung locales (and not continuously in front of a computer), a mobile-first, two-way hospitality communications channel is essential to your hospitality team’s success. If a bomb threat is called in, a fire starts on floor 17 or the air quality on your property is deemed unsafe due to wildfires, you need to notify and galvanize affected employees, and fast.
Create a 5-star Experience With a CEM Platform.
- Marshal on-staff resources with seamless mass notifications when an incident occurs on your property. If a fight breaks out in the lobby, launch a first-response notification to on-duty security guards and issue a follow-up notification to confirm the situation was resolved.
- Notify employees with instructions about how to protect themselves and guests in the event of a crisis such as an earthquake, active shooter or theft.
- Meet your duty of care and respond to staffers’ requests for assistance during an emergency with two-way communications capabilities.
3. Keep Guests Safe and Informed During Emergencies and Every Day.
When extreme weather or other events affect your facility, prompt communication demonstrates your commitment to guests’ safety, directs them to take measures to protect themselves and relays the facts before the rumor mill takes over. To further elevate the guest experience during non-emergency times, take advantage of mass notifications to communicate about everyday items and events, enhancing their overall stay.
Create a 5-star Experience With a CEM Platform.
- Show guests their safety is a top priority with targeted communications about severe weather, an uptick in crime in the area and other threats via mobile phone, email and text.
- Occasional power outages, technical failures and reservation system disruptions are unavoidable. To minimize inconvenience, promptly inform guests of a hiccup and advise when service is expected to be restored.
- Communicate with guests about routine activities and information to enhance their visit. Tout the complimentary happy hour in the lounge, drum up interest in the pickleball tournament and promote the three-day-midweek special you’re running for return visitors.
When it comes to safety, there’s no room for compromise. Protect your property and safeguard your most important asset - your people. Contact us today to learn more about how a unified platform for critical event management can get you a five-star hospitality health and safety rating.
