Challenge

Marriott International Inc. is the largest hospitality company in the world, and the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center is the largest Marriott property in the world. Located in Nashville, Tennessee, Gaylord Opryland offers visitors the chance to experience Music City under a single roof. The Resort has a hotel with over 3000 suites and rooms and a smaller adjacent hotel with more than 300.

Ryman Hospitality, the organization that owns Gaylord Brand Hotels, decided to embark on a risk assessment of their properties in 2017. The third-party assessors discovered that CCTV systems were lacking in all of the hotels, including at the Gaylord Opryland Resort. According to Greg Pezzo, Gaylord Opryland Resort and Attractions’ Safety and Security Director, “The system consisted of old operating systems and cameras that didn’t all work. The security team could not get consistent playback from all of their cameras, and they were not able to store data for more than a few weeks at a time.”

As a result of the risk assessment, ownership it decided to invest in a complete upgrade of all its hotels and chose the Gaylord Opryland as its test case. Their strategy was to use Opryland as the model and then upgrade their other five Gaylord hotels following its success.

“Our older security camera images are grainy or black and white, which means we could not get the level of detail we needed. But, with Hanwha cameras, we are able to capture high quality images that show us, for example, how a guest fell. Whether there was an obstruction, water on the floor, or an indentation or whether the guest simply tripped.”
— Greg Pezzo, Gaylord Opryland Resort and Attractions’ Safety and Security Director

Solution

Working with integrator Herring Technology, Ryman Hospitality designed a solution that features a new video management system (VMS) from Milestone Systems and 1500 state-of-the-art cameras from Hanwha Techwin.

The Resort purchased a variety of Hanwha cameras, including 145 XND-6010 full HD cameras with video analytics, 182 Q series indoor and outdoor dome cameras with IR, and more than 20 PNM 7000 and 9000 multi-directional cameras.

Deciding where to place their 1500 cameras was a relatively simple process. Pezzo explains, “We added cameras where we had high volume, where we had experienced problems in the past, and where we didn’t previously have cameras at all.” They also looked at their own data relating to theft and other incidents to help determine camera location.

Result

According to Pezzo, one of the main functions of their upgraded system is protecting the Resort against false claims. He states, “From a claims perspective, this surveillance system and, specifically, these cameras are helping to protect us against liability from potential lawsuits.”

He explains, “Our older security camera images are grainy or black and white, which means we could not get the level of detail we needed. But, with Hanwha cameras, we are able to capture high quality images in real time that show us, for example, how a guest fell: whether there was an obstruction, water on the floor, an indentation, or whether the guest simply tripped.” The ability to protect the organization against potential lawsuits equates to significant ROI for the Resort.

Now, as a result of the upgrade, security is easily able to track persons of interest clearly as they move throughout the Resort. Says Pezzo, “With 3000 rooms and a million square feet of property, the ability to see an individual this clearly as they move through our spaces is incredible. In the past, we would lose people in uncovered sections. They would just disappear. But that doesn’t happen anymore.”

For the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center, the upgrade had an immediate impact. According to Pezzo, “On the first day after installing the new cameras, someone attempted a false claim, but we were easily able to prove that it was not our fault.” For 2021, the Resort plans to invest in more new cameras every few months as the budget becomes available.