Evacuating guests with disabilities: a personal plan for each stay

A personal emergency evacuation plan (PEEP) is a one-page plan for one guest's stay: how they are warned, who comes to their room, where they wait if the stairs are unusable, and who carries the plan at night. It is voluntary, kept only for the stay, and sits inside the hotel's official emergency plan.

The fire plan on the wall says everyone leaves by the stairs. On the sixth floor a guest in a wheelchair is waiting for an answer the plan does not give. Evacuating disabled hotel guests is not solved by a louder alarm or a braver night porter; it is solved by a short routine that starts at check-in and ends with a thirty-second handover to the fire brigade. This article gives you that routine, piece by piece, with the questions to ask, the room to assign, the people to name and the waiting places to check.

What is a personal emergency evacuation plan, and what does the general plan miss?#

A personal emergency evacuation plan is a short, guest-specific addition to the hotel's emergency plan: it names how one guest is warned, who goes to the room, where they wait, and who is responsible at 03:00.

The general plan is written for a building, not a person. It assumes everyone hears the alarm, can use the stairs and can move unaided. The personal plan covers exactly that gap, and it applies well beyond wheelchair users: a guest on crutches, a guest after surgery, a guest with a heart condition who cannot manage six flights, a deaf guest asleep without a visual alarm, a blind guest who does not know the corridor.

Keep it to one page for one guest for one stay. If it needs a second page, nobody will read it at 03:00. It is a supplement: the official emergency plan required for the building and the workplace stays the governing document, and the personal plan must fit inside it, not compete with it. It does not decide whether a lift may be used in a fire. That depends on the building's design, such as emergency lifts and the lobbies that protect them, and must come from your fire consultant and the local fire brigade, not from a front-desk decision.

Write it with the guest, not about the guest. The guest usually knows what works: which side they transfer from, whether they can manage a few steps, whether a companion should be woken first. Say plainly in the document that it is not legal advice and does not replace the fire report or the official plan. For the wider rules around fire reports and building obligations, see our guide to fire safety rules for hotels in Türkiye.

How do you ask at check-in without collecting health data you should not hold?#

You ask one voluntary question of every guest, explain what it is for, record only the answer, and delete it at check-out.

Health data is a special category of personal data under Article 6 of Law No. 6698, and processing it is prohibited except in the cases the law lists, such as the person's explicit consent, according to the consolidated text of the law published by the Cumhurbaşkanlığı Mevzuat Bilgi Sistemi (opens in a new tab). So the question must be voluntary, the purpose must be stated in one sentence, and the answer must be recorded only if the guest gives it. No assumptions from a wheelchair at the door, and no note added by a colleague.

Ask every guest the same question so nobody is singled out. For example: "If the building had to be evacuated, would you need help getting out? If yes, our duty manager will come and see you." Do not ask for a diagnosis and do not write one down. Record the room, the name, the help needed in plain words, the language, and whether the guest wants a visit. Do not collect it in the booking form as a medical note: a dietary or medical note gathered before arrival can fall into the same special category, so keep pre-arrival forms to what the stay actually needs.

A guest may decline. Then the general plan applies, and staff act only on what the guest tells them at the time. Keep a record of the consent itself, and a simple way to withdraw it, such as telling the desk. Confirm the wording and the retention period with your data protection adviser. For the wider room and route decisions that follow, our accessible hotel checklist covers rooms, routes and service.

Which room should a guest who cannot use the stairs get?#

The lowest floor that still meets the guest's other needs, close to an exit stair, and never a room alone at the end of a corridor.

Ground floor if the guest wants it and the room type exists; otherwise the lowest available floor. Offer it, do not impose it: some guests prefer the view and will accept the risk once it is explained. Place the room near an exit stair, and count the doors from the room to that stair. Write the number on the plan, because in smoke the count is what people use.

Check the route at the hour it will be used. A corridor that holds the breakfast buffet or the housekeeping trolley park at 07:00 is not a route at 07:00. Under the Regulation on the Protection of Buildings from Fire (opens in a new tab) (Articles 33 and 35), exits and access routes must be clearly visible or marked with symbols, kept free of obstacles so they can be used at any time, easy to reach while the building is in use, and openable without anything blocking them. Do not treat a balcony as a rescue route, and do not count on a lift unless the building's design and the fire brigade say so. If the only suitable room is a lower category, say so and let the guest decide. A silent downgrade is worse than an honest conversation.

Who holds the list, and when is it deleted?#

The duty manager holds it, the front office keeps one printed copy for the night, and it is destroyed at check-out.

One owner per shift, by name: the duty manager during the day, the night manager after handover. A list owned by everyone is owned by nobody. Keep one printed copy at the desk, plus the plan in the room. Not on a noticeboard, not in a shared folder, not in a staff messaging group. Handover at shift change is spoken, not only written: who is in-house, which room, what help is needed, which responder is on.

Delete at check-out. If you need something for the drill report, keep an anonymous count, not the record. Limit access to the people who would act on it: the responders on shift, security, the duty manager. Housekeeping needs to know a guest may need help, not the guest's medical detail. If the stay is extended, confirm the plan again with the guest. Do not carry yesterday's consent into next week. Because this is special-category data, a loss or a leak is not an ordinary incident: confirm your notification duties and deadlines with your data protection adviser rather than relying on a general figure.

Who helps at night, and who is trained?#

Name the people, not the department: two responders per shift, at least one of them on nights, plus a backup and someone who takes the list to the entrance.

The night shift is the hard case: fewer staff, guests asleep, an alarm at 03:00 and a guest who needs two people rather than one. Write names and roles per shift on the plan: two people who go to the room, one person who takes the list and the floor plan to the entrance, one backup.

Train the physical part: how to use the evacuation chair on a real landing with a real colleague, how to help someone transfer, how to guide a blind guest, how to alert a deaf guest who is asleep. Include housekeeping and security; at night they are often closer to the corridor than the front desk. A guest's companion is not staff. Ask whether they want to be part of the plan, but never build the plan around their presence.

Record training dates and who attended. A name on a rota is not training, and a training that has never been practised on the actual stair is a guess. Review the rota when someone leaves. The most common failure is a plan naming a responder who stopped working there months ago.

Where does a guest wait: refuge areas, evacuation chairs and visual alarms?#

Where the building has a fire safety lobby, that is the designed waiting place; where it does not, the waiting place is a written decision agreed with your fire consultant and the fire brigade.

Fire safety lobbies (yangın güvenlik holü) are built to stop smoke reaching the escape stairs, for use by firefighting and rescue teams and, where necessary, for holding disabled and injured people. They are separated by walls resisting fire for at least 120 minutes and smoke-tight doors resisting at least 90 minutes. Their floor area is 3 to 6 m² and at least 1.8 m deep in the direction of escape; a lobby in front of an emergency lift is 6 to 10 m² with no dimension under 2 m. The owner and managers are responsible for keeping them empty and usable (Article 34). Go and look at yours today: lobbies fill up with linen, minibar crates and trolleys because they are empty, flat and close to the rooms.

Not every building has one. In older or smaller properties the waiting place is a decision, written down and accepted by the fire brigade, not something a receptionist improvises. An evacuation chair is a device with a trained operator and a storage place on the route: check the stair width, the number of flights, the weight limit and the monthly condition check. Evacuation warnings are given both audibly and visually, but visual warning devices are not mandatory in areas where hearing-impaired people are unlikely to be present (Article 81(3)(a)). A deaf guest in a room without one needs a person who knocks, named on the plan. For communication with deaf and blind guests more broadly, see alarms, messages and finding the way.

What do you practise, and what do you tell the fire brigade?#

Practise the handover and the walk to the room, not only the evacuation, and give the fire brigade a printed list plus a person who can read it.

Drill the parts that actually fail: the shift handover, the walk from the desk to the room in smoke, the chair on the landing, the guest who does not answer the door. At the entrance, a named person meets the fire brigade with the printed list, the floor plan, the number of guests who need help, their rooms and the waiting places. Describe the help needed, not the diagnosis: "cannot use stairs, needs the chair, room 604, waiting at the stair lobby on floor six."

Record each drill: date, scenario, who took part, what failed, what changed as a result. A drill with no written change is a rehearsal. Give the guest a one-page card in their language, in the room: who will come, what to do, where to wait, and the number to call from the room. Review after every real evacuation and every near miss, and update the plan the same week. The fire brigade's instructions on the night override your plan. Say that in the document so nobody argues at the stair door.

What to do next#

Write one personal evacuation plan this week, for the next guest who says yes at check-in, and test the handover on a night shift before you write the second. The pieces fit together in one order: a voluntary question, a room chosen for the route, a named holder per shift, a waiting place you have actually visited, and a handover to the fire brigade that takes thirty seconds.