Yes and no! The preferred action in the event of fire may be to stay put.

In a hotel??? Don't think so!

Reading the definitions, if it's protected, then it's a protected escape route.  If it's not protected, then it's an escape route.

Meeting building regulations or not is between the hotel owner, the council and the fire brigade, and nothing to do with BS7671.

I read the same article and had the same thought.  To my reading the hotel corridor is a protected escape route (as defined in BS 7671); and, as you have stated, the article seems to suggest it is not.  

We have tended to seek expert Fire Consultant advice in cases such as these now, and ask them to advise us on which of the routes should fall under the protected Escape Route category, and capture this advice in the fire strategy report.

Interestingly (or worryingly), on more than one occasion the Fire Consultant's have used the Wiring Matters article as part of their decision making.

Surely you are looking at it the wrong way round.

If it is an (official/designated) escape route then it must be protected;  the fact that somewhere has been 'protected' does not make it an escape route.

I've not read the article, but as I understand it from earlier discussions, there are, if you like, 'ordinary' escape routes (which may need to meet certain fire resistance requirements for building regs) but there's a limit to how long they can be as people need to be able to reach a safe place within a certain length of time. If you can't meet those requirements then you can have special 'protected' escape routes which sort of function as a sort of temporary refuse on the way out - as long as people can reach a protected escape route in the allotted time then all is well and they can take their time as it were getting to ultimate exit. The protected escape route requires much higher standard of fire resistance than ordinary escape routes, and is usually pretty sterile fire wise - e.g. no carpets or curtains, just bare concrete sort of thing. Ultimately it's for the fire system designer to decide which is which - the likes of us just do what we're told on that score.

   - Andy.

Andy, 

Agree with all you have said.  The frustraution I have is that there's a large leap in interpretation to get to that conclusion.  If the intent is that protected escape routes are those with an enhanced fire resistance - of say 2 hrs, then why could it have not been written this way.

It is incorrect to think of a protected stairway serving bedroom floors in a hotel as necessarily clinical with bare concrete treads. Yes, they will provide the required function as a means of vertical escape in an emergency but so might the main stairs, they usually do. They may be fitted with plush carpet and there may be fancy wallpaper and decorative light fittings. They will serve the same purpose as the bare concrete version in providing an alternative means of vertical escape in an emergency.

Hotels are purpose group 2(b) so all floors will be required to be compartment floors with a fire resistance depending on height above or below ground. Stairways therefore need to be in protected shafts which are required to have the same fire resistance as the floor. 
These stairways are places of relative safety and are accessed through fire doors from the bedroom floors via protected corridors and sometimes protected lobbies. 
AJ is correct that the emergency escape stairs, including the main stairs if used for that purpose, must be reached in a time before escape along the protected corridor becomes untenable. The time element is provided in terms of travel distance, typically 45m from the bedroom door when more than one direction of escape is available or 18m including travel within the room if only one direction is available. 
The bedroom corridors are protected escape routes and were always used as building service routes. Recently, because of the ambiguity in 7671, there is confusion over whether protected corridors, in whatever type of building, can continue to accommodate electrical services unless they are above a fire resisting ceiling.

There may be good reason to do that anyway, but I would really like to understand the actual 7671 intention and have this matter resolved.

If the corridors are designated protected escape routes, you can still use the corridor for main distribution routes provided it is a suitably fire rated ceiling. The services run in the void above and are therefore outwith the protected zone. Just need to remember fire hoods for recessed luminaires and all access hatches to be suitably fire rated.

This from the NICEIC guys;

“A protected escape route is defined within Part 2 of BS 7671: 2018+ A2: 2022 as,

Protected escape route. A route enclosed with specified fire-resisting construction designated for escape to a place of safety in the event of an emergency.

It is Certsure’s opinion that the sterile concrete stairway that leads to the ultimate place of safety (outside) would be the protected escape route in this scenario. The corridor that leads from the hotel rooms to the protected escape route (stairway) would be an escape route, but not a protected escape route as it leads to a protected escape route rather than to the ultimate place of safety.”

So, a protected corridor required for escape is not a protected escape route, glad that is cleared up!