The most important word in the hospitality industry? ‘Clean’

In February, news from the Wynn Las Vegas included plans for Valentine’s Day (among the offerings: a “Lover’s Menu for Two”) and National Margarita Day (four new cocktails).

What a difference a pandemic makes.

Three months later, the casino resort announced a much more sober initiative, the “Wynn Las Vegas Health & Disinfection Programme”. The 28-page memo lays out how the 2,700-room property will address health and hygiene when it reopens.

Out with mezcal and barhopping; in with thermal cameras, elevator capacity limits and disinfection protocols for the Chipper Champ, a chip-sorting machine.

According to the American Hotel & Lodging Association, an industry group, the coronavirus outbreak has cost hotels in the United States more than $23 billion (about R398 billion) in room revenue since mid-February.

As these properties prepare for a new operational reality – one that must balance federal, state and local laws and consumer anxiety about getting sick – the world’s largest hotel companies have all come forward in recent weeks to announce new cleaning playbooks.

“The first question that comes to mind when someone’s making the decision to book is: ‘Am I going to be safe?’” said Suzanne Markham Bagnera, assistant clinical professor and chair of the undergraduate programme in the School of Hospitality Administration at Boston University.

“Cleaning has traditionally been a back-of-the-house or behind-the-scenes tactic, hotels are now needing to bring that to the centre stage.”

Anthony Shore, a linguist who helps name products and companies, said: “We used to take a clean hotel room for granted and hope that hotels would deliver. But now, because we associate the word ‘clean’ with something that is virus-free, it has become more loaded than it used to be.”

Cleaning a hotel room in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Picture: Pedro Vilela / Getty Images

Although there are no hotel-specific disinfection guidelines from the Centres for Disease Control, the agency’s general Covid-19 resources – including everyday steps for employers and best reopening practices for businesses – has offered a foundation for hotels as they’ve sought to create their own.

Many of the new cleaning plans include a consultancy with a leading medical organisation, products and technologies from Ecolab (a major hygiene and safety company), some element of social distancing, increased disinfection of guest rooms and public spaces, and a commitment to procure and test new technologies like robots and ultraviolet light.

Guests will immediately notice the disappearance of the breakfast buffet, the decluttering of nonessential room items like throw pillows, and the wearing of masks and other personal protective equipment by staff.

Shore said the new batch of nomenclature from hotel marketing teams doesn’t suggest a higher degree of cleanliness or a significant departure from the pre-Covid era. But these measures, if implemented fully, will substantially alter how hotels operate. “

This is completely going to change the role and realm of housekeeping,” Bagnera said. “With occupancy rates so low, now is the perfect opportunity for hotel general managers to work with their teams and make sure they’re mapping out how they’re going to clean the rooms, how they’re going to be efficient and how they’re going to keep their employees safe.”

Best Western predicts that its “We Care Clean” programme – which includes more disinfection of touchpoints like taps and door handles – will increase the time it takes to clean each room by 50%.

Industrywide, the use of new disinfectants – which must sit on a surface for a certain amount of time in order to be effective – will force an adjustment to the flow in which rooms are serviced.

Whereas Wynn’s lengthy memo gets into the weeds about what will happen at one standalone casino-resort – “Addition of inserts into golf hole cups to allow easy removal of balls” – companies with thousands of hotels can’t offer that level of detail. Rather, their new cleaning guidelines are meant as overarching navigational tools. They’re guidelines and best practices, not strict directives.

But most big chains do not usually own, and often don’t operate, the hotels bearing their names, meaning it’s up to individual franchise owners to fund supplies, training and marketing. That makes oversight a challenge.

The “Hilton CleanStay,” directive, developed in partnership with Mayo Clinic and RB, Lysol’s parent company, suggests a deeper cleaning of 10 touchpoints in the hotels. Picture: Will Newton / The New York Times

Best Western will have a system of self-auditing for its 2,200 North American hotels; general managers will be asked to keep a “We Care Clean” checklist on file.

Wyndham will kick-start “Count on Us” by financing and shipping the first round of masks, hand sanitiser and disinfectant wipes to more than 6,000 hotels and allow them to defer repayment until September. All of Hyatt’s managed and franchised hotels – more than 900 globally – will appoint “hygiene managers”.

Boutique hotels could face additional hurdles as they seek to marry cleanliness with individual expression.

Quirk Hotel, Charlottesville, in Virginia, opened in early March only to temporarily close less than two weeks later. As it preps for a June reopening, its leadership is considering ways to adhere to Hyatt’s global guidelines (Quirk is part of Destination Hotels, a Hyatt brand) without losing the identity suggested by the hotel’s name.

Employees will wear light pink masks – a nod to the hotel’s logo and lobby décor – custom tailored by a local garment maker; no-touch restaurant menus will double as clever, artistic table centrepieces.

“We are doing everything possible to go beyond simply complying with the new requirements from our parent brand, Hyatt, and the governing state of Virginia to ensure the heart and soul of our property stays intact,” said Matthew Brink, the hotel’s general manager.

Personal touches go further at fully independent hotels. At Old Edwards Inn & Spa and Half-Mile Farm, sister luxury hotels in Highlands, North Carolina, staff members are undergoing eye-expression training to decipher the needs and emotions of guests wearing face masks.

The Inn at Little Washington, in Virginia, is using life-size mannequins to fill out the state-mandated socially distanced seating at its restaurant. Ocean House, on the Rhode Island coast, is supplanting its nightly happy hour with a canape-and-cocktail cart that pushes from room to room.

“Hotels are asking guests to wear masks, distance themselves, wash their hands and use sanitiser or wipes before going into the elevator,” Bagnera said. “It’s like: ‘Come in and we’ll take care of you at a 100%’.”

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.