Hotel security, there’s a timely subject. Not so long ago this concern was taboo for hoteliers, but today it is used increasingly as a marketing pitch. A survey by Harris Interactive, international firm for Internet-based market research, confirmed that 94% of travellers consider security to be one of the decisive factors in their choice of a hotel. Even more impressive: 78% would agree to pay more for a room in a hotel that is certified “secure” by an independent authority.Most often the reception desk has its own safe. This one is necessarily larger and more resistant. It must be added that individual room safes are insured for a sum corresponding to one hundred times the price of the room, while the one at the reception desk is entirely the hotelier’s responsibility. Whether they are in the room or at the reception desk, the technological innovations have not been lacking in recent years. For a while now safes have been available that a Palm or portable computer may be plugged into in order to access the history of the safe’s openings/ closures (dates, times…). Or even, in case of litigation or when an investigation has been opened, to discover if the said opening was executed by key, master code, client code, as well as other determining information. In the same way, “if the client lies, in 99% of the cases the hotelier is able to prove it irrefutably,” affirms Jean-Eric Martin, “The system is impossible to fool thanks to the history that is accurate to within a second. The data is not erasable.” A certain Americanstyle quibbling approach is inciting more and more clients to attack their hotels upon the disappearance of their belongings, making hoteliers see the utility of such a device… They also see the interest that lies in...