Las Vegas Shooting Underscores Hotel Security Choices<br />As a result, said Jan D. Freitag, a senior vice president with STR, which tracks hotel<br />data worldwide, hotels are “a soft target — always have been and always will be.”<br />Katherine Lugar, chief executive of the American Hotel & Lodging Association, said in a statement<br />that “hotels have safety and security procedures in place that are regularly reviewed, tested and updated as are their emergency response procedures.”<br />The trade group “will continue to work with law enforcement to evaluate these measures,” she said.<br />That the shooter — Stephen Paddock — was able to take at least 17 firearms<br />and hundreds of rounds of ammunition up to a room starkly highlights the security priorities of hospitality companies: Wishing to appear inviting to guests, many hotels employ a lighter touch.<br />Explosives scanners and X-ray machines — standard equipment at airport terminals — will continue to be scarce in hotels because of the enormous premium<br />that customers place on their privacy, said Jim Stover, a senior vice president of the real estate and hospitality practice at the Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., an insurance brokerage.<br />Security at most hotels instead focuses on limiting theft, corralling unruly drunks<br />and ferreting out people wandering the halls without a room, said Mac Segal, a security consultant for an executive protection company, AS Solution.<br />Before a gunman killed more than 50 people in Las Vegas on Sunday, the police said he brought an arsenal of rifles past security<br />and up to his 32nd-floor room at the Mandalay Bay hotel.
