Latin America. In response to the recent mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas, many people are discussing whether hotels in Mexico should have metal detectors at their entrances.
Some people don't want to go through an airport-type security checkpoint, where they themselves and their suitcases pass every time they enter a hotel. It is inconvenient and intrusive, however it would have prevented the Las Vegas shooter from carrying semi-automatic firearms into his hotel room.
Metal detectors and security screens are common at hotel entrances in many countries, such as Egypt and Jordan. Luggage goes through X-rays, people walk through metal detectors, and bags are manually searched or X-rayed. It is a routine action of entering hotels. It takes about 30 seconds longer than just walking through a revolving door.
We all conform to security checks at the country's airports, although we may complain from time to time if the lines are long and we are delayed to catch a plane. But the safety assessments imposed by the United States on its flights have become part of the experience of flying since what happened on 9/11, these precautions make it safer to fly.
Safety assessments are part of the price of admission to many tourist attractions around the world. A metal detector is located in the desert in front of the pyramids in Giza. Suitcases are manually checked at many federal buildings and museums in Washington DC. A dip in the Dead Sea will require a pass through a hotel metal detector.
In Mexico, due to the great ignorance of the new characteristics of the technological advances of modern metal detector arches there are detractors of this technology, for example last year the director of the Collective Transport System (STC) Metro, Jorge Gaviño, declared the cessation of investment in the program of detector arches, arguing the lack of protection capacity in all the needs detected in said transport. He said that in addition to requiring 1,738 arches for the same number of entadas, there would be countless false alarms when detecting non-harmful elements such as the belt or the keys, that with a transport through which 5 million people pass this type of security would be useless ... this showed only the ignorance that exists of modern intelligent systems that have the ability to discriminate innocuous articles, greatly accelerating the different processes. In addition, such a large investment is not required, since there is the possibility of leasing, which in addition to being freed from the cost per asset, there is a huge advantage to have the constant maintenance service to the arches, having the equipment always in proper operation.
Maybe it's time to make it safer to stay in a hotel in Mexico by installing metal detectors and X-ray machines in their lobbies, because all these benefits are 100% applicable to hotel facilities, having equipment that preserves the tranquility of its users.
Héctor Martínez, director of the expert company in access control, Global Protection, commented "today there is no reason to dismiss the use of metal detector arches in public or private facilities where by strategy or by the need for coexistence it is necessary to preserve the safety of people and the facilities themselves, although the budgetary issue is always latent, there are options that are already available in the Mexican market offering the security that today unfortunately is a reality of demand in the country, "he said.
