Fires in hotel rooms and prediction of scenario by computer modelling

Hotel occupancy rates continue to dominate the thinking of strategic managers in the hospitality industry, not least in Hong Kong where an over-supply of hotel facilities, and reduced tourist receipts since its designation as a Special Administrative Region of People's Republic of China, have produced falling occupancy figures month on month since June 1997. In such circumstances, hospitality strategists will increasingly explore possibilities for developing competitive edge, and it could be argued that as business travellers and tourists widen their expectations of the hospitality experience, aspects of accommodation, not hitherto considered important, might receive attention as offering value added to the normal hotel package. Most hotel guests take as a given, the notion that their personal safety is almost guaranteed once inside their hotel room, or ocean liner cabin, but the fairly recent events in Pattaya, Thailand (July 1997) in which 74 were killed in a hotel fire, and the need for the total evacuation of the burning Romantica in the Mediterranean (September 1997), demonstrate that even in today's sophisticated hospitality environments, the satisfaction of the most basic need, personal safety, can not be assumed. Such events, attracting worldwide publicity as they have, must impact upon the demands made by travellers, and this paper argues that hotel rooms without proper fire prevention and protection, represent death traps for their occupants. By researching into the causes of major hotel fires throughout the world, and by using fire modelling computer software to predict various fire scenarios, it has been demonstrated that many large hotels are inappropriately protected against fire, and that, without specific precautions, fire fatalities will continue to occur.