The exercise of touristic activity in Cameroon is regulated on a regime of authorization in conformity with law No 98/006 of April 1998, and by a decree of application No 99/443/pm of March 1999. The construction, extension or exploitation of commercial lodging establishment is conditioned to obtaining a license delivered by the Ministry of Tourism and Leisure. This legal framework however classifies these lodging establishments into two groups namely: classified lodging establishments (hotels for tourism purposes, furnished apartments, hotel residences, inns, motels) and unclassified lodging establishments such as inns, bungalows which are not governed by international legal instruments in the domain but are however recognised by the law of 14th April 1998.

Security of hotel guests has to do with the scrupulous respect of basic hygienic rules especially at the kitchen, at the bar, in the rooms and general cleaning and decent approaches are supposed to be exhibited by tourism establishment owners towards their guests or clients especially international visitors.

A tourism product which becomes damaged will instantly pay the price of any other uncompetitive commodity and therefore its customers will abandon it for a rival destination or site which is better value [1]. These businesses or individuals concern with these tourism businesses are responsible for making sure that their guests remain totally secured while on their premises.

Background of Buea subdivision

Social scientists reveal that Buea was founded by a hunter in search of game and this hunter Eye Njie Tama Lifanje came from the Bomboko tribe behind the Buea Mountain (Mount Cameroon or Mount Fako) and in his search for game one day he founded Buea, a hospitable land and that could harbour his family. Eyé Njie named it “Mwea”, meaning, hospitable land for farming and this settlement soon grew into a tribe but made tardy development until the later part of the 19th century, when there was an influx of Europeans into Africa for exploration and colonialism purposes [2].

As the headquarters of the South West Region, Buea has a projected population above 200.000 inhabitants, it is a highly complex community that covers 870 square kilometers of surface area and visitors to Buea are wondered by the town’s picturesque landscape, iridescent vegetation, unique weather, and most especially its strategic position emphasized by the Majestic Mount Cameroon which is 4100 m above sea level.

The old German colonial capital Buea was once more host to another history-making event, celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of the reunification of Cameroon took place at the independence square in Buea on Thursday 20th February 2014. Though the event was celebrated in the ten region of the country, celebrations in Buea was very special because it witnessed the end of a cycle of activities and the presence of the President of the Republic, top government officials, heads of diplomatic missions, representatives of international organizations as well as Cameroonians of diverse cultural backgrounds that were drawn from all the regions of the country [3].

Hall [4] believes that the impact of the terrorist attacks of 11th September 2001 in the United States of America (USA) has placed the tourist industry at an international level in turmoil; this shows how important travel and tourism are to the global economy.

Safety and security is one of the most important factors that tourists do take into consideration whenever they do decide to visit or travel to a country or region for touristic purposes, the slightest whispers of political discontent make them to cancel their journey or cut short their trip if they are already in that touristic region or country [5].

Fielding and Shortland [6] while studying the effect of political instability on tourism concludes that international travel is very expensive, so tourists leaving their rich countries to poor countries may have more experience of being a potential criminal target and maybe less sensitive to the risk involved. The private sector plays the most powerful role in managing tourism at local destinations, its potentials management tools for achieving and managing sustainability through tourism are ultimately more powerful in practice than those available to the public sector because of the depth of commercial knowledge of customers and market forces and the skills inherent in demand management [7].

Tourism hotel offers several services such as leisure, transportation, use of computer and above all conference hall for meetings, seminars and other ceremonies. In the light of the above, hotel constitute a very serious attraction pool to very important clients and some of these clients may constitute a target. Owners of tourism establishment are therefore obliged to collaborate with the security officers of their area of operation so as to assure total security of their guests or clients.

The need of using a case study approach allows the researcher to keep hold of the holistic and significant characteristics of real-life proceedings.

The best preparation for conducting a case study analysis is to have a general analytical strategy. Even though Altinay and Pavaskevas [8] think that a case study approach has been a popular research strategy among researchers in the hospitality industry in the investigations of a number of areas, others for example Otley and Berry [9] cited in Altinay and Pavaskevas [8] conclude that a case study strategy will allow you to generate new knowledge about the topic when the existing knowledge is insufficient. This research work used both primary and secondary data, secondary data that was information collected from the bulletins, magazines and websites.

Analysis and findings of the variables are given in Table 1.

Table 1: Tourism establishment respond to security of their guests.

Police security register

From Table 1, all the 10 hotels visited indicated that they have police security register, this is in conformity with article 199 of the Cameroon penal code: with no exceptions; everybody seeking for lodging in the hotel must be identified, registered in the police books and whosoever insist not to be identified and registered is suspicious and the attention of the commissioner of territorial surveillance must be drawn. Any receptionist that registers such a person under false name shall be punished with imprisonment from 3 months to 1 year with a fine of 100,000 to 1,000,000 FRS CFA.

Cameras surveillance system

From Table 1, 8 (80%) of the 10 hotels establishment visited indicated that they have cameras surveillance system in their establishments and 2 (20%) of the 10 hotels say they have no camera surveillance system in their establishment.

Alarm system

From Table 1, 90% of the hotel visited indicated that they have an alarm system in their establishment and 10% say they do not have an alarm system.

Table 1: Tourism establishment respond to security of their guests.

The security of guest in your tourism establishment is an obligation as prescribed by the law and any failure by management to carry out these obligations; you would be prosecuted for conspiracy against the security of the state. Remember visitors to your country completely rely on the image of your country and the image of a country or nation or state completely covers the political, economic, historical and cultural aspects and in the event of any problem in your establishment, you risk losing a lot of customers and business.