A Relaxing Hotel Experience

Excellent service, sublime surroundings and luxury within reach are all to be found at the Davenport Hotels in Spokane, Washington. The styles of the four-hotel collection extend from classic to contemporary, full-size to boutique and historic to modern. Guests can enjoy luxurious spa, wedding and business facilities as well as some of the best dining in the city. Opened in June, 2015, the 716 room Davenport Grand Hotel is designed to appeal to both business and leisure travelers.

Davenport Hotels has relied on an analog video surveillance system for the existing hotel facilities and structures. For the new Davenport Grand Hotel, however, the hotel management wanted to ensure the safety and security of its guests, employees and visitors while helping to prevent theft and other loss. It was also important to be able to capture images of the vehicles that come and go from the public garage used by hotel guests. This would enable the hotel to better deal with potential vehicle damage claims, which is a common issue in the hospitality industry.
Each of the Davenport Grand‘s planned camera applications would require highly detailed video, and the management team knew from the start that an analog surveillance system would not be sufficient. “We have other hotels that have analog cameras in operation, so getting a more current system with better clarity was a priority. We decided not to invest in an older system,“ said Kevin Miller, Corporate Director of Security for the Davenport Collection of Properties. Instead, an IP megapixel surveillance camera solution would be required.

Test Shots
Working with Spokane-based security firm A-TEC, the hotel narrowed its potential choices down to three camera vendors, each of which submitted a bid for the video surveillance system project. After evaluating all of the products included in the bids, the hotel chose IP megapixel cameras from Arecont Vision, primarily based on image quality. Exacq was chosen as the video management software.
“If we‘re going to build a new surveillance system, we need to make sure that we can actually see who was involved if we have an incident,“ said Miller. “We wanted an innately high-quality, flexible solution.“ The hotel management had a system design in mind, which Kevin Jetton, A-TEC‘s President, was able to refine based on what he saw after touring the facility. According to Jetton, the changes were largely based on the ability to cut the hotel‘s costs without sacrificing camera coverage. „We pride ourselves on determining what the areas of concern are, how we are going to address them and knowing which cameras will do the best job,“ Jetton said. “We realized we could incorporate Surround Video Omni and other Arecont Vision megapixel cameras to lower the camera count and increase overall views.“

Before moving forward with the modified design, A-TEC set up a software solution in conjunction with demo cameras provided by Kyle Kayler of Arecont Vision. These were used for test shots to provide to hotel management the types of views they would be able to get with the cameras Jetton recommended. „My partnership with Arecont Vision is unprecedented, and I knew that presenting the Davenport with this solution was going to be a success because we were all working together.“ The overall installation included nearly 70 Arecont Vision cameras from several product families, all of which were deployed to suit the individual areas in which they were to be used. Stuart Wells of A-TEC led the onsite installation and integration of the system, working with the Davenport team.

Discretion Required
The hotel management wanted to ensure that the cameras wouldn‘t be the first thing that guests noticed. With a sleek, unobtrusive design, the Arecont Vision cameras have met those needs. “We certainly didn‘t want to give people the feeling that they‘re being watched throughout the hotel,“ Miller said. “We really like how the low profile of the cameras and the multi-sensor capabilities enabled us to use just one camera rather than four separate ones.“
Shortly after the installation was completed, Jetton conducted a test to see just how unobtrusive the surveillance system was. “I took two visitors with me to do a walk-through of the hotel when the installation was first completed and I challenged them to find the cameras. On many different occasions they didn‘t even notice that they were in the camera views,“ he said. “People are there to relax and enjoy their time; they don‘t want to feel like they are being watched by cameras.“

Evidential Images
The Arecont Vision cameras have allowed the Davenport Grand to take a more proactive and preventative approach to security, something that would have been missing from an analog surveillance system. “We can see activity and hopefully stop and report behavior to prevent things from happening,“ Miller said. In terms of return on investment, the ability to avoid claims for which the hotel is not responsible has been a major benefit of the new system. This has been particularly the case with the vehicle valet service. “With these cameras we‘re able to look at the video and say with confidence whether a mark on the vehicle was there when he or she arrived at the hotel,“ Miller said.
The cameras have also helped with a number of instances of items disappearing from the exterior of the hotel. In one example, the security team was able to provide the local police department with video which led to the items being returned and the thieves apprehended. In addition to the Davenport Grand‘s potential cost reduction from a lower camera count, savings were realized in other areas as a result of the new surveillance system which is monitored on the premises.
“We can actually view the cameras from several different locations in real-time or in playback,“ Miller said. „These cameras help to reduce our on-floor manpower and increase our effectiveness because there can be one person on the floor and another person who is watching the cameras, who can cover ten times more area than one person can on foot.“