A travel security expert has shared his belief that anyone staying in a hotel should avoid staying above the fourth floor of the building wherever possible, and he’s got some pretty chilling thoughts about anywhere below the second floor, too.
That means that you’ve really only got two floors that are available to you if you plan to take his advice and stay where he believes is the safest part of a hotel.
The two reasons are very different, but are both common fears amongst travellers staying away from home.
Lloyd Figgins, a travel risk expert who used to be a soldier, told Sun Online Travel that he reckons you should only stay between the second and fourth floor because the ‘biggest thing that is overlooked is the risk of fire’.
Figgins said: “When you arrive in a hotel, you’re in an unfamiliar environment which you think is safe. The problem comes that if there were to be a fire alarm go off, what do we do next?
“Do we know where the fire exit is? How are we going to get to it, and is it going to get you to safety? Is it blocked or locked?”
He recommends that once you touch down in a hotel ‘it is always worth walking the route of the fire escape, counting the number of doors between your room and the fire escape.’
It might not be exactly what you want to do once you check into your hotel room, but it does make sense, and it is sound advice.
He went on: “Make sure you are staying between the second and fourth stories of the hotel because fire department ladder rarely reach above fourth storey.
“Anything below this is targeted by burglars.”
You might think that he’s just heard too many horror stories, but remember this is a travel risk expert we’re talking about here – it’s his job to be cautious about these sorts of things.
If you want to be extra careful, the author of the The Travel Survival Guide says that you should avoid saying your room number out loud, and have the staff write it down on a piece of paper for you.
Figgins went on: “Hotels attract criminals as there are a lot of people with their valuables or possessions either in their room or on them.
“Receptions and lobbies are where they can pose as fellow travellers.
“They are looking for people checking in alone because they can hear what room they are allocated — the receptionist says they are in room 301, for example.
“When they then see that person in the bar or restaurant, they know that room is unoccupied and [they] are unlikely to be disturbed.
“It is often the case that they have a way of gaining entry into that room, sometimes an inside job like getting cleaning staff to open the door for them, and know they won’t get hindered.”
As an added security measure, if you want to be really safe you should bring a door wedge with you.
He explained: “Even if you’re in your hotel room and [criminals] have the master key, the door wedge underneath will stop even that.”
Sleep well, then!
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