A study of hotels' managers and tourists’ attitudes regarding the use of furniture with hidden compartments by hotels in Bulgarian black sea and mountain resorts

Among the main threats facing the tourism sector are crimes, terrorism, and robberies. Researchers in the field state that hotel managers and even tourists themselves are refraining from submitting crime signals. In this respect, one of the main goals of the hotel’s management is to assure enough conditions to the guests to make them feel safe and secure in the hotel facilities. For that purpose, except the commonly used security devices, it is possible specially designed furniture with hidden compartments, where the guests to hide their valuables, to be placed in the hotel rooms. Such furniture are already used in the USA but there is no data or previous researches in the field regarding their use in Bulgaria. The main goal of the study is to present data from survey results of the opinions of hotel managers and tourists regarding the effectiveness and the future use of such furniture. The collection of data among hotel managers is based on the case study method. The survey among tourists is based on the questionnaires distributed on the spot. The study of statistical relationships and dependencies is based on the Chi-square test. The findings of the study show mixed reactions by the tourists even though the majority would use furniture with hidden compartments. Managers however do not see any benefits (financial or marketing) from it. The presented results are part of wider questionaries’ and data collected under the project "Model Development and Testing for Monitoring and Evaluation of Sustainable Tourism Development in Bulgaria (after the example of national resorts)" financed by the National Science Fund, contract No КП06-Н25/3 from 13.12.2018