Does Your Student Tour Group Need Security for Your Upcoming Travels?
This is an important question, let’s see what the experts have to say:
For schools, tour companies and other organizations planning field trips and outings, there are inherent risks when organizing a trip for groups of children.
There is always the possibility of injury or something worse. In 2010, a school in New York made headlines when a 12-year-old girl drowned during a field trip. It’s these types of stories that keep you awake at the night.
To help mitigate these types of risks and liability, you should consider staffing the trip with youth tour security specialists. Do you know when to hire security guards for youth group tours?
As a rule of thumb, you should always hire security guards whenever a trip has an overnight hotel stay. Day trips that are sufficiently chaperoned by adult staff generally do not require security guards.
If you’re wondering why you need security guards at overnight stops, here’s why…
Liability insurance usually mandates that you hire security guards at every overnight hotel stay, most hotels will require a licensed insured and bonded security agency.
This is to ensure the children do not leave their rooms and get into trouble. Whether or not the tour company carries liability insurance, hiring a security company will greatly reduce any liability exposure.
As a general rule, most professional security companies instruct their guards NOT to enter the hotel rooms unless there is an immediate physical threat. In most instances, the guards will call the youth tour group leader to respond to the situation.
Youth Tour Security Guard Staffing
When it comes to staffing, you want to make sure to have enough security guards. They must be positioned in a way so they can see every hotel room occupied by children in the group. If you have rooms on multiple floors or in different areas of the hotel, you’re going to need more guards. You want one guard per floor minimum and about one guard per every 20 children.
For trips with multiple overnight stops, you’ll want to consider hiring a national security guard company. That’s because you won’t have to hire and deal with multiple local security companies.
During the vetting process, find a company with the following qualities:
Extensive experience with youth tour security
Professional guards with sufficient maturity and moral character
Guards that know how to work with children
When looking for youth tour security guards, consider a company like….