If you oversee a hotel's security, you need to keep human trafficking on your radar. While you probably don't want to think about such activities going on in your hotel, the reality is that a lot of human trafficking "dates" are set up at hotels, and being proactive to identify it is the first step to take in eliminating it. Fortunately, it's often easy to identify the signs that human trafficking is taking place. As a security officer, you can then take the necessary steps, which should include contacting the authorities to share your suspicions. Here are some signs that human trafficking may be present at your hotel.

Heavy Traffic To A Particular Room

While some hotel guests may invite friends or colleagues to visit them, this isn't often the case. This means that if you're seeing a heavy flow of male traffic to a particular room, it's a concerning sign. This is especially true if the men are staying for short intervals — perhaps 30 or 60 minutes, and then leaving again. Sometimes, you may see suspicious behavior from these men. For example, they might be keeping their head down to avoid eye contact with hotel staff, or they may be looking guilty or nervous.

Person Who Books The Room Isn't Present

In some examples of human trafficking, a pimp will book a room for his trafficking victims to use to meet their "johns." In such a scenario, the pimp may show up to book the room, but not otherwise be present. It can be difficult to tell that someone is a pimp just by him or her booking the room, but if you never see this person again — but see one or more women who appear to be staying in the room — this is a sign that the room in your hotel is being used in a human trafficking operation.

Loitering In The Parking Lot

Not every instance of loitering means that human trafficking is present, but this will often be the case if a pimp has a trafficking victim working out of a hotel room. Commonly, the pimp will be nearby for a number of reasons — he or she may intervene if a john refuses to pay, or to take whatever earnings the trafficking victim has collected. If you're patrolling the parking lot and see someone sitting in his or her vehicle and watching the entrance to the hotel, often for hours at a time, this may be a bad sign.

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