A suspicious package or a bomb threat call at a hotel: the first ten minutes for staff

A bomb threat call and an unattended object are two different problems with two different first moves. On a call, keep the caller talking and write down the exact words, the time and the background noise. With an object, do not touch it, keep people away and call the police. One named person decides on evacuation.

At 02:40 the night receptionist answers a call: a flat voice says there is a device in the building and hangs up. There is no manager on the property, one colleague on the floor, and a laminated card in the drawer that nobody has read since induction. This article turns that card into something that works. It covers the hotel bomb threat procedure in two parts, the call and the object, then the evacuation decision, the record and the training that keeps it all alive. It builds on how hotel security is organized from the entrance to the night shift.

What are the first ten minutes at a hotel?#

The first ten minutes are for collecting exact information and putting distance between people and a possible device, not for deciding whether the threat is real. A call or a written message is an information problem. An unattended object is a distance problem. The card treats them separately so nobody mixes the two under pressure.

The card lives at the desk, printed, in the languages the shift actually speaks. A procedure in a folder in the manager's office is a procedure for the manager, not for the person who answers the phone. Nobody leaves the desk to go and look: the person who takes the call stays on the call, and the person who finds an object stops other people from approaching it.

The card names a role, not a person: duty manager on shift, plus a deputy. Managers are often off property, and a name on a card goes stale in a month. Judging whether a threat is credible is not the receptionist's job and not the hotel's job, and the card says so in one line, so nobody feels they have to make that call alone. The first ten minutes end when the police have been called and the named person has taken the decision. Everything after that runs on the emergency plan.

What do you ask on a bomb threat call?#

Keep the caller talking, write down what they say word for word, and note the time and the background. The questions come second, and only if the caller is willing.

Do not interrupt, argue or say that it must be a joke. A calm "I'm listening, go on" keeps the caller on the line, and the line is the only source of information you will get. Write verbatim: the exact words matter more than your summary of them, because someone else will read the note later and words carry what a paraphrase loses.

Note the mechanics: the time the call started and ended, the number or extension shown, and whether it came from inside the building. Note what you hear, not what you conclude: traffic, music, a lift, voices, a script being read, a language you recognise, and whether the caller knows the property well enough to name a room, a meeting room or a staff member.

Ask the four questions once, only if the caller is willing: where is it, when will it go off, what does it look like, why are you doing this. If they refuse, stop asking and let them talk. Do not hang up first, do not call the number back, and do not pass the call around the building. Write the note on the card itself, then sign it with your name and the time.

What do you do with a suspicious package in the lobby?#

Do not touch it, do not move it, do not open or cover it, keep people away, and let the police decide what happens next. Distance is the only tool staff have. How far people should be moved is the police's instruction on the day, not a number printed on a card by someone who is not there.

Move guests away with a neutral, true reason: maintenance in this area, a spill, a private event. You do not have to describe the object to move people away from it. Do not gather staff to look at it: every person who approaches becomes a witness the police have to interview, and the crowd itself becomes the second problem.

No photographs, no posts, no messages to group chats. A picture of an object in a lobby travels faster than any evacuation and reaches guests before your staff do. Write down what you saw from where you stood: the place, the time it was noticed, who noticed it, its size and shape, and whether anything around it had changed since the last round. If it is in a guest room, do not knock and ask the guest to open the door for a look. Treat the room as closed, move people from the corridor and call the named duty role.

Who decides whether the hotel evacuates?#

One named role on duty decides, with a named deputy behind them, and the police take over that decision when they arrive. The decision is not a vote and not a group chat. The card names the role, so that at 03:00 nobody waits for a manager who is asleep forty minutes away.

Decide in advance, in the emergency plan, whether a threat evacuation uses the fire alarm or a quiet staff-led clearing. The alarm has one meaning and guests have rehearsed it one way; improvising a second meaning at night creates a crowd at the wrong exit. One person calls the emergency line, 112 in Türkiye: the full address, which entrance responders should use, what happened, what has already been done, and a call-back number. That person stays on the line until told otherwise.

Someone goes to the gate to meet the responders. A crew that cannot find the service entrance loses minutes that no procedure can give back. One person speaks to guests, with one short agreed message; nobody else improvises a version, and nobody confirms or denies details of a police operation. If the decision is to clear the building, the existing plan runs: assembly point, floor checks by the people who know those floors, and a count against the list. This section plugs into the hotel emergency plan: teams, guests, first aiders and evacuation.

What should be written down afterwards?#

The incident record is written on the same shift, in the caller's own words, with times and names, and it is not rewritten later. Quote, do not summarise. The exact words of the call and the exact time of each step are the parts that survive scrutiny; a tidy summary written two days later does not.

Record the decisions and who took them, including a decision not to evacuate. A decision that was made and written down is a decision; one that was made and forgotten becomes a gap. Agree one short holding statement for guests with the named role: what is known, what guests should do, when they will hear more. No speculation and no operational detail.

Look after the people involved. The receptionist who took the call and the housekeeper who found the object are affected, and they need a break, a colleague and a named person to talk to before the end of the shift. Debrief within 48 hours while memory is fresh; the debrief changes the card and the training, never the record. A hoax gets the same record as anything else. One call is an incident; the same words, the same voice or the same time of night across months is a pattern, and only the record shows it. The same discipline applies to what a hotel incident report should record after an accident, a theft or a dispute.

How do you keep the card usable between incidents?#

Test it quarterly, at night, with the person who would actually be alone at the desk, and check every number printed on it. A fifteen-minute walk-through beats an annual lecture. Read a scripted call aloud, have the receptionist write it on the card, then compare the note with the script and discuss what was missed.

Run it on the night shift. A procedure that only works with a manager and six colleagues on the floor is not a night procedure, and most of these calls arrive at night. Check every phone number on the card each quarter: internal extensions, duty mobiles and manager numbers change, and a card with one dead number is a card nobody trusts.

Give the card one named owner and print a review date on it. Unowned procedures drift out of date quietly. New starters read the card in their first week and sign it, next to the fire plan, so that the first time they see it is not the first time they need it. Walk the route to the assembly point at night once a quarter, with the same people who would use it, so that the plan is a route people know rather than a diagram on a wall. The same logic drives running a fire drill at night with the night shift and writing the report.

What the card is not#

It is not a search procedure, not bomb-handling guidance and not a replacement for the emergency plan. Staff do not search the building for a device: a search by untrained people creates risk, moves things that matter and destroys information the police need.

No distances, timings or handling instructions belong on the card. Those come from the police on the day, and a printed number invites people to act on it instead of on an instruction. The card does not replace the emergency plan, the fire plan or the first-aid arrangements; it plugs into them and points at them. It is not a script for talking to guests, which is one person's job with one agreed message, and it is not a reason to keep the property open while waiting for instructions that have already been given.

What to do next#

Print one card, name the role and the deputy on it, and test it on the next night shift with the person who would actually be alone at the desk. The three parts fit together: the call is an information task, the object is a distance task, and the evacuation is one named person's decision, taken with the police and written down the same night.