Hotel security: how to protect guests and staff

• Manner: the officer greets, offers help and verifies quietly — the same question is hospitality to a guest and a check to a stranger.
• Appearance: a uniform or dress that suits the property, agreed with management.
• Working with reception: the front desk knows who is a guest; the officer knows who should not be there. Information has to flow both ways at once.
• Escalation: who is told (shift lead, duty manager) and when the police are called — written into the post orders.

The officer works for a company operating under Greek Law 2518/1997 and needs a personal work licence, category A or B (art. 3). What they may do about someone who is not a guest is not improvised: they act within the law and follow a written procedure agreed before the first shift.

OVIT designs hotel security around guest flow and ties its protocols to reception and the duty manager (hotel security).

• Guest floors: keycard lift access where available, quiet corridor rounds, a prompt and polite response to anyone without a reason to be there.
• VIP floors and suites: restricted access, agreed with management and, where there is one, with the guest’s own team.
• Staff entrance: entry and exit control, cards or a shift list, no door propped open.
• Suppliers and deliveries: identification, a record of what was delivered and when, an escort where needed.
• Keys and keycards: who issues a room card, to whom, and what happens to cards that are lost or not returned.

The keycard rule is the one most often missed: a card issued without checking identity cancels every other control on the floor.

• Reception: backing up the night receptionist with late arrivals and visitors who are not guests.
• Rounds: routes and times that vary, time-stamped at each point.
• Closing up: bars, restaurants, the pool and staff doors checked as soon as they close.
• First response: medical incident, fire alarm, noise or a fight — who calls whom, written in advance.

Night cover has a cost to plan for: work between 22:00 and 06:00 carries a 25% premium under Greek law (Presidential Decree 62/2025, art. 150 §1). On a post covered around the clock, 8 of the 24 hours — one third — are night hours. For the full picture, see the guide to guarding costs.

Protecting events and conferences is a service Law 2518/1997 names explicitly among a security company’s activities (art. 1 §1(d)). For a hotel, that means an event can have its own plan, separate from day-to-day guarding.

1. Agree with the organiser or the couple on the guest list, badges or invitations, and who has the final word on someone who is not on the list.
2. Plan arrivals, valet and parking so they do not block the hotel entrance.
3. Keep the event separate from the guest floors and from other guests.
4. Agree what happens with late-night drinking, gifts and envelopes, and departures.
5. Set who is told and who decides in an incident, so the event is not stopped without reason.

Cash envelopes and gifts at a wedding need a named person and a secure room — not a table next to the exit.

Article 17 of Directive 1/2011 applies to every kind of accommodation — hotels, guesthouses, rented rooms. The Authority states that the Directive still applies alongside the GDPR and Law 4624/2019.

• Allowed: main entrance, reception, lift and stairwell entrances and exits, cash offices, mechanical and electrical plant.
• Not allowed: dining areas, corridors leading to rooms, room entrances, toilets, pools, gyms, sports areas, changing rooms.
• Signs: clearly visible, before the camera’s range, naming the controller, the purpose and a contact for data-subject rights (art. 12).
• Retention: delete within 15 working days at most if nothing happens; 30 days for an incident against the hotel, 3 months for one involving a third party (art. 8).
• Staff: no use to monitor or evaluate employees (art. 27 of Law 4624/2019).

Where cameras are not allowed — guest floors, the pool — protection comes from people: rounds, lift access control and staff who know what to do.

• Common incidents: loss or theft from a room, a non-guest on the floors, a medical emergency, a fight at the bar or an event, a fire alarm.
• What the report holds: time, zone, a factual description, actions, who was alerted, witnesses, photos or a video clip.
• Discretion: guest details stay with those who need them; the report does not circulate in group chats.
• Video: decide the same day which footage is kept as an incident, so it is not deleted in the normal cycle.

OVIT records rounds, incidents and actions on mobile with time stamps, and management sees patrols, incidents and reports in one live picture through the Guardly platform. A real person answers the operations desk.

Full-time work in Greece is 40 hours a week (Presidential Decree 62/2025, art. 189 §1). A post covered around the clock, 7 days a week, is 168 hours, or 4.2 full-time people before leave, sickness and training. A second post for just 8 peak evening hours, 7 days, adds 56 hours — 1.4 people.

• Before the season: train new officers on the property, the procedures and the hotel’s manner before the first guests arrive.
• At peak: extra posts at entrances, the pool, events and the night shift.
• Off-season: guarding closed wings, renovation works and stores.
• Continuity: a steady core of people who return each year already knows the hotel.

OVIT starts with a hotel risk assessment — public, private and back-of-house areas — and a prioritised plan. Request a proposal for your hotel, and read first how to choose a security company.