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Presidential Preparations
So how exactly does a hotel prepare for when the Commander In Chief drops by for the night? We let you in on some behind the scenes secrets.
Tuesday, October 02, 2012
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For skilled managers and experienced staff, gearing up for large events is relatively routine. Superbowl? No problem. Weddings? You got it. But candidates for President of the United States? That’s a different story.
“It’s not like any large event that they have ever had, unless they’ve had the pope or the queen at their property,” says Kim Fuller, former travel director for former Senator Bob Dole and former president Bush Sr. and Jr. She has also assisted on coordinating travel for former Vice President Cheney and President Regan.
When the president travels during a campaign, his envoy never consists of less than fifty people, and can include over a hundred hired personnel and multiple volunteers. Kurt Haraldson, GM at the Hampton Inn in Des Moines, Iowa, said that during the president’s trip in 2010, his envoy booked 110 out of the property’s 120 rooms.
“We had to clear out ten guest rooms and take out the beds,” Haraldson says. “They turned them into offices.”
Hotel general managers meet with the entire staff as well as local officials to prepare for the sharp increase in hotel occupancy and the sharp increase in the property’s security.
“About 24 hours before the president arrives, his security arrives,” says Ron Morin, GM of the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina. “It’s like an airport setting, you have to go through metal detectors, and put stuff on an x-ray, so everyone has to go through that.” The president has stayed at the Grove Park Inn twice during his presidential term.
For Michael Gildersleeve, the managing director at the Hermosa Inn in Paradise Valley, Arizona, hosted candidate Romney during the republican primaries and got to witness first hand, the type of security that hotel staff has to accommodate when a political candidate comes to speak at a property.
“Paradise Valley Polive had to block off traffic,” Gildersleeve says. “There were concerns about protesters but it all went off without a hitch.” Romney visited the Hermosa Inn when Dan Quayle gave a speech there to endorse candidate Romney for the republican presidential nomination.
In order to make things with candidates go as smoothly as possible, the travel coordinator will communicate certain procedures with the hotel staff to make sure that things can move along quickly and smoothly.
“We have such a great relationship with hotel staff,” Fuller says. “They don’t really know what our infrastructure is. Most people think that secret service is in charge of what the president does, but that’s not true, they just handle the security.”
To make things easier for hotel staff, Fuller makes a sheet that she gives to the general manager as well as the hotel’s director of sales that outlines what she will be asking for and who hotel staff should go to if they have any questions.
“[Hotels] are part of our team,” says Fuller. “If we need something from the hotel, we need to ask permission. We really look at the hotel staff as part of our team.”
During President Obama’s stay in Des Moines, Iowa, his envoy took up the entire third and fourth floor of Haraldson’s property. In order to better accommodate the president and his staff, they had maintenance change the elevator so it could not ascend beyond the second floor.
“There was great communication between [Obama’s] staff and ours. We knew what was going on, when it was going to happen, what we could and couldn’t do. There were no issues at all,” Haraldson says.
But another major priority for general managers and the rest of the staff is to remember about other guests that are staying at the hotel while accommodating political candidates.
“We have three main buildings in our complex, so if we have guests that don’t want the headache of staying in the same building as the president, we can put them in another building to lessen the [security] impact on their vacation,” Morin says.
Regardless of the security increases, extra staffing, and remembering to accommodate other hotel guests, the staff of a political candidate makes sure they are in and out of any property they visit with as little impact on the property as possible.
“It took three to four hours to set everything up and they were gone within the hour, it’s amazing how these guys move in and out.” Gildersleeve says. “[It’s] definitely a well-organized machine. They’ve got it down.”
“If you’ve never witnessed it firsthand, you just can’t imagine it,” Morin says. “I’m very lucky in my job to have met the president.”
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