Award criteria of the Safehotel are defined in a catalogue of requirements, which includes the core statements of the BS methodology for fire safety in European hotels published by HOTREC, the European umbrella organization of the hospitality industry . The assessment is done with a checklist which includes a points system. The respective test criteria reflect the objective of ensuring fire safety in hotels as well as the physical safety of guests and staff.
Award criteria for the quality label are
- fulfilment of the requirements in the lists M, B and S with an allowed deviation of at most two points each (96 – 100 points)
- fulfilment of the core requirements in relation to the organizational aspects and smoke detection equipment (list C)
- scoring at least 300 points
You can find all lists in the menue ‘Checklist’, where you can also download these lists as pdf-files.
Good fire safety in hotels
To prevent fires in hotels as they develop, and to minimize their impact, particular attention should be paid to preventive fire protection in hotels. This ranges from the structural fire protection (e.g. compliance with special structural policies or the creation of fire protection concepts) to the technical fire protection systems (such as the installation of fire alarm systems and fire extinguishers) and to the organizational fire protection (e.g. as the creation of fire alarm plans).
Also the training of staff is paramount. The training goal is to inform the staff about the safety equipment of the hotel and to enable them to perform the tasks described in the fire alarm plans especially in a fire event. Only trained personnel understands the utmost importance of easily accessible and usable escape routes and will thus will pay special attention on this during housekeeping.
As well as fire prevention also fire response – ie extinguishing and rescue in case of fire – plays an important role. However, this is primarily the task of the fire service; hotel staff has only limited potential.
The Safehotel-Star concept acknowledges good interaction of these components for fire safety in hotels.
Thus, in the catalogue of requirements aspects of the structural fire protection, technical fire protection systems and organizational fire protection are listed and checked. Also appropriate training of staff has a special significance in the checklist system.