Guest Safety in an Emergency
Recently friends visiting from Switzerland were staying in an upmarket hotel in Sydney’s CBD. It is not surprising to hear what they experienced at around 4:30 in the morning. They were woken from their sleep by the sound of loud sirens but were not aware of what the sounds meant or what they should do. These were presumably the ‘alert’ tones and they were shortly followed by the ‘whoop, whoop’ evacuation tones. Unsure of what to do and getting no response from reception, they simply remained in their hotel rooms and eventually the sirens stopped. Most likely just a false alarm but it could have had catastrophic consequences for our friends if it had been the real thing.
The story highlights the real issue faced by any large building but particularly hotels, where the majority of guests are from overseas and are not familiar with the local fire evacuation procedures. This is exacerbated by the fact that for many English is not their first language and some will not understand English at all. The question that must be asked is although your building might comply with legal requirements, are you really able to safely evacuate your guests quickly in an emergency? How do you guarantee that your guests will know what to do in an emergency and will your (skeleton) staff be up to the task at 4:00 in the morning?
A Luminous Centralised Alarm Management solution integrates key systems within a hotel. This unique ability to connect systems like the property management system (PMS), the telephone system (PBX), the fire detection system (FIP) or the security/access system opens up opportunities to communicate with guests in their preferred language. Efficient, reliable communication in an emergency is the key to minimising harm to persons and infrastructure.
A Luminous Response Scenario can be defined to respond to a fire alarm and facilitate the evacuation. Luminous receives information from the fire detection system. Using basic data from the PMS, Luminous calls each occupied room in that guest’s language of choice and plays them clear pre-recorded instructions in that language. A report is immediately provided to reception detailing which rooms have acknowledged the call, which rooms did not answer or did not acknowledge the call and which rooms are not occupied. This can be used by staff or provided to the arriving emergency services.
Is it a false alarm? Luminous can provide all on duty staff with the ‘plain English’ version of where the fire is supposedly located. It is Luminous’ unique ability to utilise voice technology via the PBX to immediately reach staff via their extension, DECT, mobile or smartphone that is so powerful. This gives you the opportunity to avoid an evacuation altogether if this is just due to a faulty detector or burnt toast.
