In December 2018, Marriot revealed the data breach it had suffered. The revelation was done three months after they had first found out about the breach. As investigation would later reveal, the breach had been open to hackers since 2014. Over 500 million customer data was breached, carted away and a reasonable chunk of the data was deleted. Although in a recent release, the authority said it revised the number of breached data, to belong to about 383 million guests.

More than 2/3 of the data were said to be encrypted; yet, the unencrypted ones still ran, leg deep into the pool of several millions. The data include passport details, social security numbers, credit card details and so on. What made this a potentially catastrophic case was that Marriot manages a number of hotels that includes Starwood.

The impending doom would be if a substantial number of customers press charges against the organization about how much loss they had suffered from the data breach. Sadly, this incident has become a case study and pointer to other companies in the hospitality management industry; not just them, but also every organization that deals with customers’ data.

Important lessons to learn are to take adequate security measures and get a rightful policy for hotel insurance.

Security actions to be taken:

Now, sometimes we are not responsible for some of the things that happen to us or to our organizations. No matter how we try or take background operations, an organization would always be at fault in the face of its customers. Hence, learning from this Marriott data breach incident, there are things that your business organization should do or put in place to avoid any safety or security issues.

1. Take cybersecurity seriously. You should consider having an in-house IT manager to monitor and review security protocols through the hotel’s entire system. Also, add encrypted layers to your hotel’s Wi-Fi’s signal.

2. Perform thorough routine checks on your data storage device and internal systems.

3. You should consider security automation on systems and data so that you are never offline with data security measures.

4. It would also be a great thing if, apart from the fact that data are encrypted, data are stored offline. Considering an online surfacing of data should only be when there is a need to write or re-write the data.

Getting a Hotel Insurance

Hotel insurance is important for a company that wants to survive in an industry as delicate as this. Therefore, to avoid various issues about guest information and risk management, the right security measures should be taken, and good insurance coverage.

Having a good choice of an insurance company with a broker can be a good thing. A company such as Luxury for full hotel and resort services does not just offer insurance, they are also involved in helping hotels keep their guests and their properties safe.

Things to consider when thinking about taking insurance for your hotel business:

1. Coverage for general liability, liquor, liability and auto liability.

2. Hospitality claims management

3. The extent of an umbrella or excess liability, that is, the limit.