When a guest stays at a property, from economy to luxury, they want to know that they are safe. In an effort to keep their guests—and employees—safe, hotels around the globe have implemented various security surveillance systems.
With these systems comes a lot of collected data that can be used for more than just keeping guests safe. Using artificial intelligence (AI), that data can be analyzed to create value for the investment in the security system.
License plate recognition can be used to monitor the vehicles that come onto the property.
“Most hotels now charge for parking and especially in a high-traffic area, they want to make sure that the folks who have paid are guests there,” said Scott Thomas, national director, signature brands, Genetec, a manufacturer of physical security solutions. “They will be alerted if cars are coming in and potentially staying that haven’t been registered.”
The license plate recognition system can also be used to recognize a car that may have been associated with some bad actors and alert the front desk or security a real-time notification if it comes on property again.
“There are some other security applications for this as well,” said Thomas. “Maybe you had a terminated employee or a guest who has a restraining order against a spouse—this is what is termed hot list matching.”
The security expert said that the surveillance system is also good for floor-plan application.
“The systems can keep track of how many people are visiting the gym, restaurant or gift shop versus how many people are checked in,” he said. “We can give them counts. We can tell them how many people have gone into the bar versus how many have walked past it. All of these things help with headcount and staffing.”
For example, in the fitness center, the system can analyze how much usage it is seeing and if the space needs to grow or if it could be better allocated to a different use.
In the gift shop, it can also calculate the conversion rate. “Basically, it tells them, ‘We had 50 people come into the gift shop today and 20 bought something,’ so that is a 40% conversion rate,” said Thomas. “That allows the proprietor to know if they need to bring more merchandise in or marketing.”
While management can easily keep track of how many purchases were made at F&B outlets, like bars and restaurants, Thomas said the surveillance can track how many potential customers might have left because a space was too crowded, and they decided not to wait.
“We can also tell them, if we are tied into their point of sale, how many folks were in line at a given time and compare that to the actual transaction numbers,” he said. “With that, they can gauge what percentage of business was lost because they weren’t staffed well enough.”
Security systems can also help in the loss-prevention area. “I have been in this business for 32 years across the retail and hospitality industry,” said Thomas. “Places where you are dealing with cash transactions are the biggest areas of loss for the proprietor or owner. We have the ability to tie into the point-of-sale system and, along with the video, can detect if a drink is ordered and potentially not paid for, or if it is voided out at the end of a transaction. The server might have marked it out as a customer walk-off, but instead pocketed the money.”
For anyone who has gotten to a hotel only to be greeted by an exceedingly long line, a surveillance system can also keep track of how many people are in line and send an alert to a manager when extra check-in help is needed.
