When Robb Monkman was a college student, he and his roommates were robbed at gunpoint. The home invasion and hostage taking rocked Monkman to his core and determined the course of his career.
Monkman is founder and CEO of ReactMobile, which provides electronic security devices, or panic buttons, for businesses, including the hospitality industry.
ReactMobile is among several technology companies included in the American Hotel & Lodging Association’s Five Star Promise, a pledge by major hotel companies to establish and implement best practices to protect their employees. The promise includes the deployment of hand-held technology, hospitality workers can use to summon help in times of crisis for themselves or guests.
In this episode, Part Two of Lodging Leaders’ report on hotel safety and security, we explore panic button technology and trends. We interview advisers on what’s available to hotel owners and operators as they work to come up with methods to protect their employees. We also review AHLA’s Five Star Promise and what it is calling the hospitality industry to do. And we talk with Unite Here, the labor union that got the whole thing started.
Resources and Links
To view the American Hotel & Lodging Association’s Five Star Promise news conference on Sept. 6, 2018, click here.
Ginny Morrison of Evanston, Illinois, is a 33-year veteran of Spire Hospitality, a hotel management company with a portfolio that spans coast-to-coast. As vice president of sales and marketing, Morrison saw the coronavirus pandemic decimate the meetings business. More than a year later, she’s witnessing a comeback as small-meeting planners are actively booking events for the last half of 2021 and beyond. As public health agencies expand COVID-19 vaccination programs across the U.S. and states ease up on public-gathering restrictions designed to keep the virus at bay, the hotel industry is seeing small meetings begin a comeback. In Episode 317, Long Live Lodging covers the state of the small-meetings sector and how hotels can grab their share of the meetings business during and post-pandemic. This report is part of our ongoing coverage about the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the hospitality industry.
The Hunter Hotel Investment Conference will be the industry’s first large event to be held during the coronavirus pandemic. The Atlanta event will be a hybrid format of in-person and virtual access, also an industry first. Lee Hunter, chairman of the conference, knows the level of expectation is high among other conference planners as well as industry professionals eager to network after more than a yearlong hiatus. Episode 316 of Lodging Leaders podcast features Hunter as he tells what it takes to re-launch the industry’s conference circuit amid the COVID-19 outbreak.