The attacks on the Taj and Oberoi Hotels in Mumbai, India in 2008 served as chilling reminders of the need for more effective security in hospitality facilities. But enhancing security is not simple. Hotels go to extraordinary lengths to welcome individual guests and large gatherings, both of which might permit a criminal or terrorist to slip past watchful security officers.

While it is necessary to ensure that guests can rely on a lodging property to ensure safety, it’s also necessary to preserve the equity of a hospitality brand, which has been painstakingly created over years. Tough, tight, visible security might reassure guests, but it could also damage brand equity. One of the key challenges of hospitality security, then, involves balancing security measures with expected guest experiences.

The first step in tightening security is to make an assessment of the perceived threat, which will vary with geography and hotel type. A boutique in the arts district in Ft. Worth, TX faces small risks compared to a major hotel near Capitol Hill in Washington, DC that’s frequented by members of Congress, wealthy business people and celebrities. Each requires different security treatments.

Whatever the treatment, however, building design can help deliver effective security that doesn’t significantly compromise the experience promised by a brand. Here are 10 building design concepts that enhance security without compromising the hospitality experience:
 
1. Perimeter. The perimeter of a hotel is the first line of defense against an attack, and an effective security design will subtly but firmly control access to a building, especially by vehicles. Secure perimeter design separates the building from streets and parking areas and forces vehicles (which might be equipped with bombs) to remain at standoff distances of 50 to 100 feet. Standoff design tools include bollards, lighting standards and collapsible pavement. Landscaping elements such as low walls, planters and water features can also keep vehicles back. These are security measures with aesthetic appeal.

2. Lighting. Lighting tailored to security can also appeal to guests. Entrances, walkways and potential hiding places outside the hotel need adequate lighting to facilitate observations by patrolling security officers and video surveillance cameras, as well as guests out for a stroll. Loading docks and delivery entrances also need lighting, which need not show concern for aesthetics. One caution: While bright lighting facilitates observation, overly bright lighting creates glare and limits visibility. Variable intensity systems, smart controls and motion detection can minimize energy use and mitigate aesthetic disadvantages created by lighting.

3. Parking. As the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 showed, parking structures below buildings invite attention from terrorists. Worse, vehicles carrying bombs that detonate under buildings can cause damage to the structures above. To prevent the problem, parking structures could be placed adjacent to rather than beneath a hotel. When conditions require putting a parking structure under a hotel, it becomes important to institute strict controls over the size of vehicles permitted into the garage. In addition, a security officer monitoring a security gate should facilitate positive identification of vehicles and drivers entering the structure.

4. Ballrooms, auditoriums and gathering spaces. Hotels provide large and small gathering spaces. When filled with people, ballrooms, auditoriums, lounges and restaurants make attractive targets. Locating these spaces away from exterior walls, perhaps facing interior courtyards or other secure but attractive spaces, can make them difficult to attack from the outside.

5. Glazing. Expanses of glazing should face away from streets and parking areas and look out on protected, interior gardens and courtyards. When exterior glazing must face a street, special film coating the glass can minimize lethal flying shards in the event of a blast. At locations presenting extreme risks, walls facing unsecured areas may eliminate glass in favor of reinforced masonry or concrete. The security benefits justify the added cost.
 
6. Access points. In a secure hotel, the fewer points of access, the better. In addition, placing entrances at locations offering clear lines of site make it easier for security officers, staff or video cameras to monitor comings and goings. Spaces requiring easy access for vendors, trash collectors and other large vehicles should be located away from the guestroom tower, main lobby, conference rooms, restaurants, lounges and other gathering spaces. For example, the lobby might work well as a freestanding pavilion so an attack there could be contained outside of the hotel structure. It would also protect the hotel from a blast occurring in the lobby. Such a design would likely move a porte cochere (and the vehicles typically parking there) further from the main structure.
 
7. Air intakes. To help protect against chemical or biological attacks, designers can place air intakes for heating, ventilating and air conditioning equipment high up on building facades. The technique provides the additional benefit of fresher air. To protect intakes that must, of necessity, be placed near the ground, designers can specify equipment with tops that slope steeply downward to make it more difficult (and more time-consuming) for an attacker to inject contaminants.
 
8. Guestroom tower. The guestroom tower needs sufficient standoff distance from major streets to add insurance against the progressive collapse of the structure should a bomb go off on the street. Again, if a set back or standoff is impractical, structural reinforcement might be necessary.
 
9. Floor plan. Designers should develop interior floor plans that make it easy to monitor and control access to elevator lobbies and guestroom floors. Techniques include allowing natural lines of sight to entrances and public spaces to make it easy for security as well as staff—reception, concierge, housekeepers and others—to keep watch. A secure floor plan also enables staff to lock down the facility incrementally to contain dangerous activity. It might be necessary, for example, to isolate lobbies and lounges, pre-function spaces, ballrooms, meeting spaces, the loading dock and various back-of-house spaces.

10. Technologies. Security technologies can supplement and improve the performance of security people. If considered from the outset of the hotel's design, metal detectors, explosive material detectors and video surveillance cameras can be integrated unobtrusively into a building design. Emerging technologies are expanding the available options as well. For instance, video analytics, embedded in chips inside cameras, can be programmed to recognize certain actions: a vehicle parked beside a building for an unusual length of time; people running; people fighting; speeding vehicles; and a host of other shapes and movements that may indicate trouble.

Classic security practice combines design, technology and staffing with operational policies and procedures. Together, these components make it possible to identify problems early enough to mount an appropriate response. Procedures include an emergency response plan that includes alarm, containment/lock-down, evacuation and communications capabilities that can maintain contact among staff, guests, security staff and law enforcement.

No guest will feel comfortable in a hotel that fails to address the potential problems associated with fire, theft and now terrorism. Security design can address these issues without detracting from the experience offered by the hotel or the equity of a hospitality brand.

Jim Suggs is a principal with RTKL Associates Inc. He can be reached at jsuggs@rtkl.com or 214-468.7698.