Ep.55 Hotel Advances for Executive Protection

A luxury hotel doesn’t automatically make it a secure hotel. In this episode of Executive Protection Insights, Liam explains how experienced advance agents assess a hotel long before the principal arrives. 

Through real-world operational stories, he explores arrival and departure procedures, underground parking, service elevators, emergency planning, medical response, line-of-sight vulnerabilities, and the importance of understanding how a hotel truly operates. 

Learn why a professional hotel advance is about reducing uncertainty and building a safer, more efficient operation.

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Transcript

Welcome to Executive Protection Insights.

I’m Liam.

People often ask me what I look for first when I arrive at a hotel during an advance.

Most expect me to say the lobby.

Or the executive suite.

Or maybe the CCTV room.

The truth is…

I usually don’t even walk inside.

Not at first.

I stop across the street.

Sometimes with a coffee in my hand.

Sometimes sitting inside the advance vehicle.

And I simply watch.

I watch traffic.

I watch people.

I watch how the hotel actually operates.

Because hotels behave very differently at two o’clock in the afternoon than they do at seven in the morning.

A website can’t tell you that.

A floor plan certainly can’t.

A hotel advance starts long before you step through the revolving doors.

I remember arriving at a hotel in Europe where the executive assistant had booked three weeks earlier.

Beautiful property.

Five stars.

Excellent reputation.

The client had stayed there several times before.

Nobody had any concerns.

I arrived just before lunchtime, parked across the street and started watching.

Within ten minutes I’d learned more than I could have from an hour reading brochures.

The first thing I noticed was the porte-cochère.

It looked impressive.

Large enough for several vehicles.

Until the airport shuttle arrived.

Then a delivery truck.

Then two taxis.

Within moments the entire entrance was blocked.

I imagined our principal arriving right in the middle of that.

Where would the opening vehicle stage?

Could the follow vehicle maintain visual contact?

If we had to depart quickly, could the principal vehicle leave without reversing?

The answer to every question was the same.

Probably not.

Nothing about the hotel was unsafe.

But operationally…

It was inefficient.

Executive protection isn’t only about security.

It’s about movement.

Everything we do revolves around movement.

How does the principal arrive?

Where do they exit the vehicle?

How far do they walk?

Who can see them?

Who can approach them?

How quickly can they leave again?

That’s why I spend as much time outside a hotel as I do inside it.

After a few minutes I drove around the building.

That’s another habit I’ve developed over the years.

Never assume the front entrance tells you everything.

Almost every hotel has another side.

Sometimes that’s where the real operation happens.

I found the loading dock behind the building.

Delivery trucks.

Laundry services.

Food suppliers.

Maintenance contractors.

Employees arriving for afternoon shifts.

Completely different environment.

I introduced myself to the dock supervisor and asked a simple question.

“Is this area ever used for VIP arrivals?”

He smiled.

“Only the smart ones.”

I laughed.

Then he explained that several government delegations had quietly used the loading dock over the years because it allowed vehicles to enter underground without ever stopping in front of the hotel.

Now that was interesting.

Nobody had mentioned underground parking.

It wasn’t shown on the hotel’s promotional material.

The executive assistant certainly didn’t know it existed.

Within fifteen minutes we’d completely changed our arrival plan.

Instead of approaching through the busy front entrance, we’d enter through the underground vehicle access, use a secured service elevator and arrive on the executive floor without ever crossing the public lobby.

Same hotel.

Completely different operation.

That’s why I always remind younger advance agents…

You’re not advancing the hotel.

You’re advancing how you’re going to operate inside it.

Those are very different things.

Eventually I met the Security Director.

One of the first questions I asked wasn’t about cameras.

It wasn’t about alarms.

It wasn’t even about access control.

I asked him what other events were taking place while we’d be there.

He looked at his schedule.

Then smiled.

“I’m glad you asked.”

A large pharmaceutical conference was arriving the same evening.

Nearly eight hundred delegates.

At the same time…

An international football team was checking in before a match the following day.

Suddenly the hotel we’d expected to share with business travelers was about to fill with media crews, supporters, additional security personnel and several other executive protection teams.

That changed everything.

Elevator waiting times.

Lobby congestion.

Vehicle movements.

Restaurant reservations.

Even breakfast.

Those aren’t security issues.

They’re operational issues.

And operational issues eventually become security issues if you ignore them.

Before I left his office I asked one more question.

“Any other VIPs?”

He looked down again.

“There may be a cabinet minister arriving tomorrow evening.”

Perfect.

Exactly the sort of information I wanted before the operation rather than during it.

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that you rarely operate alone.

Your principal isn’t always the only important person staying in the hotel.

Sometimes you’ll share the property with another corporate executive.

Sometimes a celebrity.

Sometimes a sports team.

Sometimes a government delegation.

Every one of those arrivals changes the environment.

More media.

More police.

More spectators.

More attention.

Your advance should identify those changes long before your principal checks in.

As we continued walking, I asked if we could visit the service elevators.

The Security Director reached into his pocket and produced a keycard.

“These are restricted.”

Good.

That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.

We walked through the employee entrance, into the back-of-house corridors and toward the freight elevators.

Completely different world.

No marble floors.

No grand piano.

No guests.

Just engineers, housekeeping staff, room service and maintenance technicians quietly keeping the hotel running.

Most guests never see these corridors.

Executive protection professionals should.

Because one day…

They may become your primary movement route.

The Security Director handed me the access card and said, “Go ahead.”

So I did.

I wanted to know exactly where those service elevators opened on every floor we’d be using.

Could they reach the executive suites?

Could they reach the conference level?

Could they access the underground parking garage?

Could housekeeping accidentally stop the elevator for ten minutes during a busy shift?

Those sound like small details.

Until your principal needs to move quickly.

Then they’re suddenly very important.

As we stepped onto the executive floor, I didn’t walk toward the suite.

I walked to the windows.

People sometimes find that strange.

They expect me to inspect the room first.

I almost always inspect the outside first.

What can I see?

More importantly…

What can see me?

Across the street stood an office building almost level with the executive floor.

Its conference rooms looked directly toward several guest suites.

On the opposite side of the hotel was a residential apartment building with balconies overlooking the arrival area.

Neither represented a threat by itself.

But they represented observation points.

Executive protection isn’t only about preventing attacks.

It’s about understanding visibility.

Could someone photograph the principal arriving?

Could media use a long lens from the neighboring building?

Could a drone operator launch from the rooftop across the street?

Could someone simply sit on a balcony and watch every movement into the hotel?

These aren’t reasons to reject a hotel.

They’re reasons to understand how you’re going to operate from it.

I always remind younger agents that the room itself is only one piece of the puzzle.

The route to the room often matters more.

The next stop was the emergency stairwell.

Every hotel has evacuation diagrams posted on the back of the guest room door.

Very few people ever walk them.

I do.

Every time.

Because diagrams don’t tell you what you’ll actually find.

Does the stairwell discharge outside the building?

Does it empty into the lobby?

Does it terminate inside the underground parking garage?

Can it be re-entered on every floor?

Is it locked from the outside?

I’ve found stairwell doors chained shut during renovations.

I’ve found storage boxes blocking emergency exits.

I’ve found stairwells that looked perfect on the plans but were unusable in reality.

That’s why an advance is called an advance.

You verify.

You don’t assume.

While we were looking at the fire control room, I asked another question I ask on every hotel advance.

“Show me your AED.”

The engineer looked surprised.

“The defibrillator?”

“Yes.”

Within a few minutes we had located it.

Then I asked who on duty was trained to use it.

How many staff members were medically trained during the night shift?

What was the average ambulance response time?

Which entrance would emergency services use?

Would they come through the front lobby?

The loading dock?

The underground garage?

Had they ever received an air ambulance patient transferred from the hotel?

Most people think medical planning starts with the nearest hospital.

It doesn’t.

It starts inside the building.

Because those first few minutes belong to you and the people around you.

Only after that does the local emergency medical system become part of the plan.

One of the engineers then mentioned something that wasn’t in any brochure.

The hotel had emergency generators.

Excellent.

I asked him another question.

“What do they power?”

He smiled.

“Not everything.”

That’s the answer I usually expect.

Emergency lighting.

Fire alarms.

Life safety systems.

A limited number of elevators.

Some communications.

Perfect.

Now we knew.

Would the executive floor lose power?

Would electronic locks continue operating?

Would CCTV remain online?

Would the underground parking garage still have lighting?

Would Wi-Fi continue functioning?

Those aren’t theoretical questions if you’re operating in parts of the world where power interruptions are common.

On one deployment we actually carried a Starlink terminal because reliable communications couldn’t be guaranteed.

Not because we expected problems.

Because communications are part of operational resilience.

The more critical the mission, the less comfortable I become relying on a single point of failure.

The same applies to internet connections.

The same applies to electrical power.

The same applies to elevators.

The same applies to entrances.

Everything should have a backup.

Before leaving the engineering office, I asked if we could review the evacuation procedures.

Not the guest version.

The hotel’s version.

Who makes the decision to evacuate?

Who communicates with guests?

Where is the assembly area?

How do emergency services access the property?

What are the local fire department’s response procedures?

Has the hotel conducted recent evacuation drills?

Those conversations are never dramatic.

They’re simply part of understanding how the building functions under stress.

If an emergency ever occurs, that won’t be the time to start introducing yourself to the people running it.

One of the last places I always visit is the parking garage.

People often underestimate underground parking.

I don’t.

I want to know how many entrances it has.

Whether license plate barriers create delays.

Whether large executive SUVs can negotiate the turns.

Where delivery vehicles park.

Whether employees use the same ramps as guests.

Whether a principal can enter a vehicle under cover without attracting attention.

On one operation we discovered that delivery trucks blocked the exit ramp every morning between six and seven while unloading breakfast supplies.

Completely routine.

Completely predictable.

Completely capable of delaying a departure if nobody had taken the time to walk the garage beforehand.

Again…

Nothing dramatic.

Just operational reality.

As I finished the advance that afternoon, I sat back in the vehicle before driving away.

I looked at my notebook.

There wasn’t a single page filled with dramatic security threats.

Instead, it was full of observations.

Arrival routes.

Departure routes.

Underground access.

Generator capacity.

AED locations.

Ambulance access.

Service elevators.

Keycard requirements.

Employee entrances.

Fire procedures.

Other VIP arrivals.

Delivery schedules.

Loading dock operations.

Line-of-sight observations.

Every one of those notes would eventually become part of the advance package.

Individually, none of them looked particularly important.

Together, they explained exactly how we were going to operate safely and efficiently from that hotel.

That’s what a professional hotel advance really is.

It isn’t about trying to find reasons to reject a property.

It isn’t about proving the hotel is insecure.

It’s about removing uncertainty.

Understanding the building.

Understanding the people who work there.

Understanding how the property behaves at six in the morning, at lunchtime, during a conference, during an evacuation and in the middle of the night.

Because once your principal arrives, the advance is over.

Execution begins.

And the quality of that execution will almost always depend on the questions you asked before the first suitcase ever came through the front door.

Until next time…

Stay sharp.

Stay prepared.

And stay operational.