Deployment of Security Management Technologies in the Hospitality Industry in Lagos Metropolis, Nigeria

This study examined the technologies being deployed for security management in selected hotels in the Lagos metropolis and investigated factors influencing the deployment of the technologies. It also assessed the effectiveness of the security technologies in the hospitality industry with a view to improving the standard of hotel security management in the metropolis. A multistage sampling technique was adopted to select fifty (50) hotels in Lagos state that were registered with the National Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC), Abuja. Three classes of hotels namely; 3-, 4-, and 5-Star were purposively selected. Data were collected through the administration of fifty (50) copies of questionnaire to the security managers, general managers, personnel managers, and other staff of the hotels. The questionnaire elicited information on the types of security technologies used, factors influencing the deployment of the devices and effectiveness of the technologies on quality of service. The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results showed that Close Circuit Television (CCTV) (100%), access pass for cars (92.9%), badges (81.0%) and lightings (97.6%) were the most used security technologies in the hotels. The study also showed that across the three classes of hotels considered, (3-, 4- and 5-Star hotels), most of the respondents considered training (4, 4.0 and 4.2), level of knowledge and expertise (4.3,4.7 and 4.0), user acceptance (4.0, 3.7 and 4) benefit consideration (4.1, 3.7 and 4.0) and location of the hotel (3.7, 3.5 and 4.6) respectively as factors that influenced deployment of security technologies on a five-point Likert scale. In addition, the result showed positive and significant relationships between quality of service and size of hotel (r=0.385, p<0.05), and among variables such as cost benefit consideration (r=0.330, p<0.05), coverage area (r=0.420, p<0.05), cost of maintenance (r= 0.335, p<0.05), user acceptance (r=0.317, p<0.05) and customers’ attitude toward the device (r=-0.437, p<0.05). Finally, the result showed that quality of service achieved through the deployment of security technology had significant effect by increasing efficiency (β=0.947), reliability (β=1.359) and improved security (β=1.058) The study concluded that security technologies deployed by the hotels were effective as it increased efficiency, improved security, and reliability.