Using Bollards in Hotels

Hotels, with their high footfall and prestige as a key player in a country’s tourism industry and a meeting place for important political and business figures, can be a hot target for terror attacks. When located in a crowded city center, hotels are also vulnerable to vehicular accidents. Considering these risk factors, hotels require high-level security but should still be able to maintain a welcoming atmosphere. Thus, hotels have used bollards in the following ways:

Landmarking

Hotels use bollards for landmarking their premises. When designed with the hotel’s emblem or as a distinct statement piece, landmarking bollards help people remember the place and include in their travel pictures.

Safety

Safety bollards help hotels ensure the safety of their customers before they enter or leave the facility by ensuring a safe interaction between pedestrians and vehicles.

Safety bollards are used to delineate vehicle roadways from pedestrian sidewalks. They also prevent vehicles from mounting the curbs or pavements, giving walking safe space for pedestrians, and effectively reduce vehicle speed when approaching the entrance of hotels. Safety bollards ensure the safety of pedestrians along pathways and roadways leading to the hotel. Safety bollards are always fixed and made of steel. For hotels, it must be covered with stainless steel.

Parking

Outdoor Car Park

Some hotels also provide outdoor parking. To prevent unauthorized parking, hotels can use automatic parking bollards.
Whereas barriers and fences tend to limit pedestrian flow, parking bollards only block vehicle entry allowing pedestrians to walk freely in designated spaces.

For VIP guests, executives, or building owners who require private car parking slots, removable or foldable parking-bollards can be used as privacy bollards to clearly indicate reserved parking space within the hotel premises.

Indoor Car Park

As most hotel parking lots have dedicated multi-storey parking inside the hotel building, bolt-down bollards or surface-mounted bollards can be the best option. Surface-mounted bollards are easy to install without excavation and can withstand enough vehicle impact while providing visual guidance for drivers.

For VIP guests, executives, or building owners who require private car parking slots, foldable bollards can be used as privacy bollards to clearly reserve these slots. Foldable bollards are an alternative to removable bollards that require excavation.

Access Control

Automatic bollards can be the best option for vehicle access control, especially for hotels. Vehicle access can easily be granted using a remote control, pulse dialing, or with a magnetic loop detector. These automatic bollards can be fitted with flashing lights and reflective tapes to increase visibility and can be extended to 900mm in 4 seconds.

Similarly, automatic pneumatic bollards can also be used as access control bollards for hotels with high intensive vehicle flow. They can easily be installed and operated, require low maintenance cost, and can easily be integrated with most access control systems. Pneumatic bollards have a built-in gas cylinder connected with a compressor in an external cabinet with a gas tube. Source:

Traffic Control

Hotels, especially when hosting events, need to control traffic flow into their premises.
Most traffic bollards are for temporary use but can not be removable. Thus, traffic bollards require excavation or boring. If excavation presents a delay, an alternative is to use base plate fixed bollards which are easy to install and fix onsite and also does not require a complicated removal process.

By using traffic control bollards the management and security team can create physical and visual barriers to direct vehicles to the right direction while still allowing pedestrians to pass freely.

Traffic bollards are commonly painted yellow, orange or black with white strips, although other color options are available to increase visibility. Traffic bollards need to be made of quality materials for long-term durability are usually made from steel and polyethylene.

Landscaping/Lighting

Hotels have used bollards as part of landscape design. Landscaping bollards secure building exteriors and outdoor gardens to mark the hotel’s perimeter while enhancing aesthetics. These bollards can be made of steel or ductile iron for long-lasting durability.

Landscaping bollards are used to design pathways to guide pedestrians going in and out of hotels. They also provide a clear, visual barrier without giving a fortress-like appeal. When outfitted with solar lighting or LED bulbs, lighting bollards can help guide pedestrians to the correct pathway and increase parking lot visibility at night.

Security

Hotels are a hot target for terror attacks. In 2008, a dump truck pulled into the Marriott Hotel’s entrance in Islamabad, Pakistan loaded with explosives killing at least 54 people and injuring at least 266 hotel workers and customers. Immediately after the incident, hotels fortified their entrances and doorways with the use of HVM bollards to prevent the entry of these hostile vehicles and provide a safe blast stand-off distance.

Today, most countries require a written plan for counter-terrorism measures to acquire permission for the construction of new hotels. Hotels are also required to retrofit security measures in existing hotels. Although some developing countries do not have this requirement in their building codes, hotel chains have adopted these measures as a best practice to ensure the safety and security of their customers and personnel and prevent damage to property that can disrupt business operations.

Security bollards or HVM bollards are made of steel and filled with concrete. They can be designed in a range of styles and decorated with bollard covers to suit the aesthetic requirements of hotels. HVM bollards need to be crash-tested against vehicle impact and should have a crash test certificate. This certificate usually comes together with the foundation design and installation requirements. Any deviation from the design or installation guide will undermine its quality and crash-test certificate.

More recently, hotels have also stepped up their security measures by installing HVM bollards at drop off points. This is especially crucial for hotels located in central business districts of major cities. Due to the heavy traffic, installing security bollards in locations where vehicle volume and crash impact is high not only prevents terror attacks but also vehicular accidents.

HVM Planters (Street Furniture)

Aside from using bollards, hotels can also use HVM planters to complement its existing Hostile Vehicle Mitigation (HVM) strategy. As common street furniture, HVM planters will not exude a fortress-like barrier to pedestrians but will effectively prevent a vehicle from ramming into hotels.

Asset Protection

Asset protection bollards are mainly used indoors in hotels to protect the corners of large kitchen equipment such as refrigeration units, kitchen racks, and shelves from out-of-control floor cleaners, polishers, forklifts, or electric scooters. Bolt-down or surface-mounted bollards can be used as asset protection bollards because they are strong enough to resist the impact force of low-speed equipment.

Asset protection bollards can be made of stainless steel. The cost of installing these bollards can be recovered by preventing an accident or lost-time from work by hotel personnel due to injury, disability or fatality. Asset protection bollards can also prevent inventory loss and provide visual guidance for hotel workers.

Protection bollards used outdoors protect essential hotel utilities such as gas or water meters that may be unguarded for long periods of time. They can also be used to protect building columns exposed to out-of-control vehicles. They are installed in front of these building components to act as a physical barrier and protect them from damage.