Safety & Security

How much are you going to compromise when it comes to safety and security in the hotel that you stay?

No doubt, budget hotel galore. But when you really look at it, the saving may not worth the risk if you put your safety into consideration. Yet this is often overlooked by most budget seekers.

Fire in hotels and lives lost because of poor safety standard may not be everyday news, yet we do come across them now and then. Branded chained hotel will safeguard their name at all cost to play down any fire. But the truth is that these branded chained do put in extra effort and resources in hotel safety and security. To them, these areas are not negotiable.

This is a different story for budget hotels. In order to keep cost down, a lot of budget hotels in Asia are housed in buildings that are not necessary suitable for hotel. This is especially true for the "shoplot" hotel where the rooms are on the higher floors. A shop lot is meant for office or residence. When you convert a few upper floors of the shoplot into hotel, safety is compromised.

Because of the sheer size of these hotels, a lot of safety measures and equipment will not be implemented. Some findings are that these hotels have only one exit, or additional exit is closed to prevent guest from skipping out without paying bill and to prevent robberies. Very often, these exits are also blocked. A lot of the rooms have barred windows which made escape almost impossible.

One finding in US points out that 96% of fire has minimum lost and zero casaulities when the building is equipped with sprinkler system. Sprinkler system will definitely be missing in these small budget hotels. Very often, alarm system will also be non available.

In addition, with minimum manpower, training on safety awareness and fire drill will most certainly be absenced.

These budget hotels cannot be our choice even if it is to save money. So it is wise to check out the budget hotel that is also safe and secure.
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