Enhancing Hotel Housekeeping and Cleaning Amid COVID-19
For your guests, your hotel is nothing less than a home away from home.
As such, they expect to feel comfortable and safe when they stay with you. Creating this welcoming environment will be even tougher as the Coronavirus pandemic flares up across the country.
Together with your housekeeping team, though, you can make your accommodation feel this way. A sparkling, sanitized space will help everyone rest easy — here's how to make it happen:
- Ditch the Nonessentials
- Disinfect the Doors and Everything Else Guests Touch
- Remove Decorative Extras
- Go Contactless Where Possible
- Seal It With a Sticker
The Coronavirus can live for up to three days on hard surfaces, such as plastic and metal. Remove nonessential items made from these materials from your guest rooms.
Hilton has already announced its intentions to do this. It will take away pens, pads and paper menus in favor of a digital directory that guests can scroll instead.
Where are your guests most likely to touch? These should be the areas your housekeeping team focuses on. They should take extra care to disinfect door handles, elevator buttons, faucets, remote controls, thermostats and lamp switches.
You've curated lovely decor for your guestrooms, but now's not the time for frill. Instead, your guests want to check-in and know their rooms are clean and sanitary.
Many experts suggest that those staying in hotels remove decorative throws and pillows, as these aren't often laundered after each guest uses them. You can make this task easier on your visitors by storing these and other items that could hold onto virus particles. Make a note of your bed-cleaning regimen and leave it in the room to explain its stark appearance — and give further peace of mind to your clients.
Apps and mobile check-in are the future of hotels as it is. Now is the perfect time to upgrade your system so guests can conduct their hotel business from their phones.
It's not just check-in that can go digital, either. Many chains have upgraded their door systems with keyless entry. Instead, guests use the app to send a signal and unlock their doors. You can see how this would be a great addition to your lodging in the time of COVID-19.
Think of other ways to make your hotel's usual process hands-free. For instance, you can do contactless room service or bellhop delivery — just leave trays or luggage racks outside guest room doors.
Your proactive COVID-19 cleaning regimen will sanitize the room, but how will your guests know? One way to show them the space has been scoured — and was left untouched since — is with a sticker. Have the housekeepers place one on the room's exterior door to show that no one has opened it since cleaning. If they had, they would have ripped the sticker, after all.
Clean and Comfortable, Even Now
It's a tough time for hotels — travelers are staying home to protect themselves from COVID-19. Their fears won't alleviate the end of government restrictions, either. It's up to you to make guests feel more comfortable than ever when they stay with you after this ends. These five tips will help you do so in the wake of coronavirus and beyond.
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