Hotel industry is a very competitive one. One high season comes hotel owners begin real wars to win loyalty of customers. Indeed, there is a wide choice of hotels in any country. Customers are free to choose hotels according to their preferences and budgets. Sure, everyone wants to get the most value for his or her money. Every minor detail matters in the hotel. Security measures are of exceptional importance since when visitors miss their personal things they will never come to that hotel again. Moreover, if such a theft becomes public the hotel reputation will most certainly suffer. For this reason, evaluation of security measures in the hotel is as importance as measurement of its business performance. Top security is an inseparable part of the hotel top rate service. These days, hotel owners and managers use the most popular performance evaluation tool which is known as Balanced Scorecard. Having developed strategic goals and chosen a set of key performance indicators, hotel managers can evalua
te current performance as well as locate problems.
Hotel security is provided through various services, from surveillance and installment of cameras to regular checkups of corridors, lobbies and other rooms and areas. Without proper evaluation it is very difficult to say whether or not hotel security measures are efficient. Of course, one can use statistic information such as theft or incidents rates. However, these figures information on what has already happened. It is impossible to plan ahead without having figures on current performance of Security Service.
Thus, in order to get such information as set of relevant key performance indicators has to be developed. To begin with, it needs mentioning that key performance indicators are not just numbers. KPIs represent critical success factors for various aspects of running business, hotel security in our case. Thus, top managers and those responsible for implementation of Balanced Scorecard in a hotel should consider the most important factors that directly influence top performance of a hotel in terms of security. At that, the hotel should take care of safety of both visitors, own personnel, and protection of hotel property.
Key performance indicators used to measure security performance have to be understood for ordinary security officers. If security guards do not understand the purpose of using Balanced Scorecard and key performance indicators they are likely to offer fake figures just to fulfill the tasks. Key performance indicators have to be measurable. For example it is reasonable to measure such indicator as percentage of time corridors and lobbies are not checked by security guards. Logically, the more often security officers checked up rooms and lobbies, the less probable incidents are. Two other relevant key performance indicators for hotel security we can refer number of checkups performed outside, percentage of time that security guards are not working or unable to prevent accidents, number of security officers per storey etc.