Lorine Emenike
The task force set up by the commissioner of police Mustapha Dandaura to clamp down on hotels which are yet to install CCTV has commenced operation with visits to five-star hotels in the state.
The task force which is made up of the Nigeria Hotels Association, the Nigeria police and DSS began its clampdown on hotels without CCTV operating in the state on Wednesday.
The leader of the taskforce enforcing the mandatory compliance of installation of CCTV and standard check-in and check-outs, Napoleon Okoh, said the need for hotel owners to comply with the guidelines could not be overemphasized.
Meanwhile, the Hospitality industry in Rivers state has decried low patronage following the news of serial killings in hotels around the state.
The Assistant General Manager of hotel Presidential, Rex Yakugoro, told the team that the security standard of the hotel would not allow any criminal to come in and operate freely.
He said: “First of all, we don’t have short time because what we operate is room rate and from the moment you come into the hotel, we are monitoring because our CCTVs are everywhere. We have a standard operating system that guides our operation.
“I think the government should control the proliferation of hotels. There should be standard for hotels which are usually Categorized so it was surprising to us that somebody can walk into a hotel and kill somebody and walk away.”
Also, the General Manager of Golden Tulip in Port Harcourt, Anthony Akhieze, also confirmed to us that the issue of serial killing in hotels in Rivers State affected their operation.
He said: “yes, that issue was blown out of proportion and one can’t even imagine that it happened in hotels. That affected our guests turnover. We have been experiencing low patronage of guests, and most events which usually take place in the state were moved to Lagos. It also affected our finances as well because some company Retainerships we usually have were moved to Lagos.”
The GM of Golden Tulip Mr Anthony called on the task force to take the enforcement to all nooks and cranny of the state to fish out the cheap hotels to clear the image of the hospitality industry in rivers state which he said is not good nationally and internationally.
The Novotel Front Desk Manager, Joy Fernandez, said: “though the issue of low patronage did not affect its operations, it has a culture of safety and security procedure in place which everyone complies with as safety is an everyday thing for The Novotel staff.”
She called on the smaller hotels with porous security to embrace the necessary security procedures that could boost the image and the negative narrative of the hotels in the state.
