NCJ Number
139831
Journal
Corporate Travel Dated: (November 1992) Pages: 26-29
Date Published
1992
Length
3 pages
Annotation
A recent survey focusing on hotel crime reveals that, contrary to the popular myth that hotels are fairly safe places to stay, frequent hotel guests have a relatively high risk of victimization.
Abstract
Conducted by Corporate Travel magazine and Beta Research, the 1992 survey gathered information from 227 randomly selected frequent business travelers. Findings revealed that nearly 24 percent of the executives surveyed said they had been victims of hotel crime, almost half occurring within the past 2 years. Twenty-five percent of the males and 18.2 percent of the females had been victims. Sixty-nine percent of the victims had been doing business travel for more than 10 years and held executive-level positions in their company. In addition, nearly 40 percent of non-victims reported that a traveling companion or close associate had been a victim of crime at a hotel. Thefts from guest rooms were the most common offense. Assaults and other personal attacks were reported by only 2 percent of the victims, but almost 9 percent said that they knew someone who had been assaulted in a hotel and 3 percent had a close associate who had been sexually assaulted. Sixty-nine percent of the victims said that the hotel was part of a major chain, and 40.7 percent reported incidents occurring in luxury hotels. One-third of the victims did not report the crime to the police department, but 90.7 contacted hotel personnel. Faulty keys or negligent procedures for distributing keys accounted for the majority of the security problems. Tables, photographs, and address from which to obtain a list of suggestions to improve hotel security