When Bob Stewart, marketing director for the Marriott Waterside in Tampa, started working in the hospitality business nearly 30 years ago, hotel security meant preventing theft and dealing with rowdy guests.
With Tuesday's bombing outside the JW Marriott in Jakarta marking the third terrorist attack on foreign franchises of U.S. hotels in just over a year, hotel security has become a much more serious matter.
"We're already in an ongoing state of alert, but we've beefed it up a couple of notches," Stewart said. "We take our direction from the Homeland Security warning tier."
While employees at the 3-year-old Tampa hotel are always on the lookout for unattended briefcases, cars and delivery trucks, special measures go into effect when government officials declare an orange alert. No cars are allowed unattended in front of the hotel. Delivery trucks have to be escorted onto the property. The driver's registration is checked.
Stewart sounds wistful when he remembers the hotel business before Sept. 11, 2001.
"Security used to mean you'd knock on a guest's door and tell them to be quiet," he said.
Unlike airports, where metal detectors and searches right down to a traveler's shoes have become commonplace, hotels are in the awkward position of trying to welcome guests while surreptitiously sizing them up for trouble.
In the past two years, that may mean more security, both uniform and plainclothes, on the property. Doormen may be warned to keep an eye out for cars idling in front of the property. Staff may ask to check guests' photo IDs.
Most hoteliers are reluctant to talk about the specific steps they've taken to prevent terrorist attacks. John Wolf, a spokesman at Marriott's headquarters in Bethesda, Md., said that to do so would compromise the hotel chain's security system.
"We regularly assess and adjust security measures on a regional and local basis," said Wolf, whose company manages hotels that include the Jakarta Marriott as well as 22 properties in the Tampa Bay area. "At this time we're reviewing the need for any additional precautions."
Hotels are more willing to discuss their crisis management plans, which kick into gear when protective measures fail. The bombing, which took place at lunchtime Tuesday in Jakarta, meant that Marriott's executive vice president of communications in Virginia was rousted from bed at 2:30 a.m. By 4 a.m., a toll-free line had been established for people wanting to check on the safety of guests and hotel workers in Jakarta. At least 10 people were killed and nearly 150 wounded in the bombing, which was caused by a car bomb in front of the hotel.
Glenn Haussman, editor in chief of Hotelinteractive.com, an online trade publication, thinks hotels have put time and energy into developing crisis management plans because it's the one constructive thing they can do.
"There's nothing you can do to protect your guests from somebody with a bomb," Haussman said. "There seems to be a lot of window-dressing to make guests feel a sense of security while hotels can't provide absolute security."
Haussman has written several editorials lampooning certain security measures as ridiculous. "The whole idea of checking IDs and checking room keys is useless," he said. "The problem is, I'm not sure what I'd like to see. That's the really vexing issue."
With tourism sluggish and business travel down, hotels are unwilling to take measures that would inconvenience travelers, Haussman said.
"I don't see hotels opening luggage or going into a lockdown so much visitors can't enjoy themselves," he said. "If hotels put in real security measures, it will dissuade people from staying there."
