Resilience-oriented room allocation for improving evacuation performance in high-rise hotels

Purpose This study aims to examine whether pre-occupancy room allocation can serve as a preparedness-oriented strategy for redistributing evacuation burden in high-rise hotels, particularly for occupants with mobility limitations or assistance needs. Design/methodology/approach A rule-based framework was developed by independently ranking guest rooms according to floor level and travel distance to the nearest protected stairs, and occupant groups according to the walking speed of their slowest member. The rankings were sequentially matched to generate prioritized assignments. Fully prioritized, randomized and partially prioritized allocation scenarios were evaluated using 30 matched Pathfinder simulation runs per scenario. Outcomes included central and upper-tail evacuation metrics, mobility- and assistance-related measures and run-level disparity indicators. Findings Randomized allocation produced faster central evacuation performance, whereas prioritized allocation became advantageous toward the upper tail. Fully and partially prioritized scenarios reduced P99 and system clearance times relative to randomized allocation and substantially shortened wheelchair-user travel distances, wheelchair clearance and staff clearance. Full prioritization did not minimize overall between-group dispersion; instead, it redistributed late-evacuation burden away from mobility- and assistance-constrained occupants. Partial prioritization retained much of the upper-tail benefit while imposing a smaller central-performance penalty. Originality/value The study treats occupant location as a controllable pre-incident variable rather than a fixed simulation input. It shows that routine room-allocation decisions can create an explicit efficiency–equity trade-off and provides a transparent decision-support approach for incorporating evacuation preparedness into hotel operations.