2 Ways To Prevent Personal Injuries In Your Hotel
Hotel ownership can be fulfilling, both emotionally and financially, and your management has a direct effect on how successful your business becomes. Unfortunately, unforeseen circumstances and general disrepair can cause injuries within your establishment. As a business owner, you are held to a high standard under the law when it comes to protecting individuals from injuries. This means that a personal injury claim may be filed and won if you did not provide a relatively safe environment for all guests. Some business owners feel that personal injury costs are a part of doing business.
This is not a wise philosophy, because a single claim can cost you a great deal of money and it can raise your insurance rates as well. You can try to prevent personal injury claims. Learn how to do this with the information below.
Maintain Your Stairs
Your hotel likely has one or several elevators that allow guests to comfortably access their rooms. Your business also must have stairs to comply with fire safety and exit laws. If your business follows regulations, then these stairs can be accessed from all floors and two staircases are available to accommodate all of the guests in the hotel.
Wide stairs are often required to make sure that guests can leave your building quickly, and a fire resistant door must close off each stairwell on each floor.
Some patrons may choose to use the stairs instead of your elevators and you need to keep them safe, so slip and fall accidents do not occur. Slip and fall accidents are extremely common, and they are one of the main reasons why individuals seek emergency room care.
Add Safety Materials
If you want to make sure that stairways are safe, place signs on all doors that lead directly to stairwells and not landings. Use words like "caution", "fall risk", and "danger". Use your computer to create signs to reduce readability issues and use a font that is at least 20, 22, or 24 points so individuals with sight problems can clearly read the signs.
For all stairwells in the building, make sure that treads are placed on steps to increase traction. The best treads are rubber varieties that contain a thick layer of adhesive on the underside. Make sure the treads feature deep grooves and solid lines or geometric shapes. This allows the treads to grip your shoes and it also lets water and other fluids channel away from the stairs. This is similar to the way that the soles of no-slip or athletic shoes prevent falls.
If you do not want to add treads to all of your stairs, then consider securing grit strips or grip tape to them instead. Grip tape that is made for the top of skateboards is perfect for your concrete stairs. It is wide, thin, and covered with a layer of silicon carbide or aluminum oxide to keep the feet from slipping. Also, this type of tape is made to stay in place for a long period of time with the assistance of a strong adhesive film.
Get Rid of Bed Bugs
If you own a hotel, then you surely do not want bed bugs in your establishment, because the pests can quickly drive guests away. Not only can bed bugs hurt your business directly, but they can harm it indirectly as well if a guest decides to file a personal injury claim. These claims can ask for reimbursement for medical bills, extermination costs, pain, emotional distress, and lost property. To reduce these incidents, make sure that your hotel staff checks every hotel room for the presence of bed bugs on a weekly basis.
How to Spot the Pests
When you ask your hotel staff to look for bed big evidence, inform them to inspect mattresses, box springs, headboards, floor molding, and dresser drawers. They should look for a reddish brown type of dust that indicates that bed bugs have left their waste in the room. If bugs are seen, then individuals should look to see if they are brown in color, wingless, and about four or five millimeters long.
If any bed bug evidence is noted, your staff member should inform you immediately. Steps should then be taken to contact an exterminator. The professional will inspect rooms to determine the extent of the infestation and arrangements will be made to spread pesticides in your hotel to kill the pests.
If you own a hotel, then you are liable for any injuries or incidents that happen within your business. This is especially true if you do not take steps to mitigate or prevent injuries from occurring in the first place. You can try to stop injuries from happening by making sure your stairs are safe and by reducing bed bug infestations.
To learn more, contact a company like Solomon, Sherman & Gabay with any questions you have/
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