GUIDEBOOK | HOUSEKEEPING APRIL 2020 GETTY IMAGES 1 GETTY IMAGES HOUSEKEEPING TAKES ON NEW URGENCY IN FIGHT AGAINST SPREAD OF COVID-19 While the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic situation as this one, said Jan Louise Jones, continues claiming lives and livelihoods around professor of hospitality and tourism in the the world, hoteliers are finding themselves College of Business at the University of New in a unique position: Some have had to Haven in West Haven, Conn., but will adapt temporarily close their businesses while others quickly and likely already are developing and are remaining open on a limited basis, offering adapting training sessions for team members. respite and accommodation to essential Smaller hotels that operate on tighter profit workers and in some cases, those who are sick. margins, however, may face more of a Whether staying open on a limited basis or challenge when it comes to changing the types performing maintenance in hopes of a prompt of detergents or disinfectants used, or even reopening, hoteliers must protect both guests increasing the frequency of washing bed linens, and their housekeeping teams, making sure she cautioned. everyone takes extra precautions to not just In the current situation, said Glen O’Connor, clean spaces, but thoroughly sanitize them. SVP/risk control director of technical services at Sompo International Global Risk Solutions, NEW NORMALS housekeepers need to be prepared for Most large hotel companies probably were three different scenarios when cleaning not prepared necessarily for such an extreme guestrooms. While a guest is staying in a room, GUIDEBOOK HOUSEKEEPING a housekeeper may simply replace some linen Prevention guidelines and wearing appropriate and tidy up a little bit, if at all. “And that’s the personal protective equipment—“which they extent of the cleaning,” O’Connor said, noting should be [doing] already from a [workers’ that it is safer for cleaning teams to minimize compensation] perspective,” O’Connor contact with both guests and potentially noted. Another small detail that can make a infected areas unless they can take the time to big difference is not shaking linens out when thoroughly disinfect the space. changing beds. “When you’re shaking linens, Then a guest checks out, and a new scenario you’re actually releasing particles and now they comes into play. “That’s where you’re going become airborne,” he said. In terms of what to see the more detailed cleaning,” O’Connor chemicals to use when cleaning, O’Connor said. “And then the third one is called the deep recommends checking the websites for the clean, and that’s when you’re moving furniture CDC, the local department of health and around and you’re really going into a deeper the Environmental Protection Agency to see type of cleaning process ... and those are done what the most current recommendations are. 2 Langham Hotels & Resorts’ properties worldwide are offering disposable face masks for guests and staff. less frequently.” This deep-cleaning process, he Suppliers like Ecolab, he added, can help said, should be corner-to-corner, making sure determine which disinfectant products are right no spot in the room is missed, because if the for different spaces and surfaces. previous guest was exposed to any pathogens, the room becomes dangerous for anyone else PUBLIC SPACES until it is sanitized. In a pandemic, every member of a hotel’s A big part of keeping rooms clean involves team becomes a housekeeper in one way following the Centers for Disease Control and or another. “Everybody’s on the clean team GUIDEBOOK HOUSEKEEPING here,” said Kenja McLeod, general manager at the Hampton Inn & Suites Tucson Marana in Arizona. ‘We’ve got our gloves, got our masks, and touching up all these areas is pretty much a constant. We’re constantly cleaning and disinfecting.” Public spaces are cleaned every High-touch areas at Langham hotels 30 minutes following a checklist to make sure are sanitized every two to three hours. all high-touch areas are kept sanitized using the same disinfectant the property was using before but Langham now is mandating that these the pandemic: a peroxide-based multisurface protective layers be installed on all of its hotels cleaner from Ecolab. worldwide. Langham Hotels & Resorts is headquartered High-traffic areas like entryways and elevators in Hong Kong, and Global Director of Rooms are sanitized every two to three hours rather than Mina Vardar Aicher said that the company late at night when few guests are around, and learned valuable lessons from the 2003 high-touch areas (door handles, elevator buttons, handrails, telephones and remote controls, 3 among others) also are sanitized regularly, according to Aicher. All workers drop off their business-use phones to be disinfected at the end of each shift so that the next shift begins with a fully sanitized device. Management company McNeill Hotel Co. has only had to close two of its 25 hotels (one was undergoing a renovation already and the other has an adjacent sister property that is remaining open), and is likewise implementing stricter cleaning procedures for the properties that have remained open. While public spaces in the Mina Varder Aicher hotels have been shut down to encourage social SARS outbreak and has been sharing these distancing, housekeepers still are cleaning lessons with the rest of the hotels within the them every hour on the hour—“as well as all portfolio. “Everywhere that you can pass public restrooms,” said Travis Murray, McNeill’s through the hotel, you will find hand sanitizer regional director of operations. Even if people dispensers,” she said. Disposable face masks don’t use the public spaces for their normal are readily available for guests and staff, functions, he explained, the act of passing and more stringent equipment is available through to get to a guestroom could put other for any high-risk areas or spaces that may people in danger: “When you have someone have been contaminated. Since the SARS walk in the front door, you never know what outbreak, many buildings in the region place they could touch,” he said. As with Langham, protective coverings over all elevator buttons, McNeill’s housekeepers are sanitizing high- GUIDEBOOK HOUSEKEEPING Across the Langham brand, housekeepers are using hospital-grade disinfectants like Oxivir TB from Diversey to clean public areas and guestrooms. touch points like elevator buttons regularly, and sealed away en route to the laundry room. “Prior to some also wear disposable shoe-coverings as coronavirus, the housekeepers would just gather well as the standard gloves. linens and send them down a laundry chute,” Murray recalled. “We’re actually bagging the linens, GUESTROOMS taking them directly to the laundry facility and then 4 When cleaning a guestroom, Murray said, the bags are emptied directly straight into the housekeepers at McNeill’s hotels spray an EPA- washing machines.” approved antiviral disinfectant (supplied by Ecolab) Housekeepers at the Hampton Inn & Suites on all surfaces. “And once the chemical is on Tucson Marana also have curtailed entering the surfaces, they wait at least 45 seconds and occupied guestrooms as much as possible. then they wipe it off,” he said. Every piece of the When cleaning recently vacated guestrooms, bathroom and every hard surface in the guestroom the housekeepers spray every hard surface with is cleaned with the disinfectants, he said, and disinfectant and let it sit for an extended time to the company is taking advantage of reduced thoroughly kill any germs that might be on those occupancy to do longer, deeper cleans on hard- surfaces. “Everything is taking us a lot longer to to-reach areas. “So basically, all touchpoints are clean,” acknowledged McLeod, “but we want to being disinfected in the room so when [it needs to make sure that the rooms are [sanitized]. They have be used again], you’ll be ready to go.” to be disinfected.” To make it easier for housekeepers and guests Anything a guest may have touched in a room to follow social distancing guidelines, McNeill’s must be sprayed with disinfectant, Aicher said, hotels are limiting normal cleaning sessions to from the hair dryers and towel racks to the coffee rooms that have been vacated. For occupied makers, teapots and ice buckets. Water glasses, rooms, Murray said guests bring their trash to the cups and any other food-and-beverage equipment doors to be collected. Clean bed linens and towels in Langham rooms are all sanitized in between are dropped off at the doors as needed, as are any bookings whether the equipment was used or not. amenities—but housekeepers avoid going inside Across the brand, housekeepers are using hospital- and any close contact. grade disinfectants like Oxivir TB from Diversey to Linens and towels coming out of the rooms clean public areas and guestrooms. “We need to be are divided into plastic bags where they can be surgically clean,” she said. GUIDEBOOK HOUSEKEEPING GETTY IMAGES 5 HOW TO APPROACH PEST CONTROL IN LIGHT OF HOTEL CLOSURES Fortunately for hotels, pest control is one of body, whereas these respiratory viruses are aspect of hotel operations where they should relatively weak and fragile when they’re not not need worry about preventing the spread being held by mucus or moisture or anything of COVID-19. According to both Judy Black, like that.” VP of quality assurance and technical services at Rollins, and Shannon Sked, manager of PEST CONTROL FOR CLOSED OR innovations and continuous improvements ‘SHRUNK’ HOTELS at Western Pest Services, there has been no As travel restrictions and stay-at-home orders research or evidence showing the coronavirus halt travel across the United States, many that causes COVID-19 is spread through pests. hoteliers have been forced to either suspend “We can’t say that it doesn’t happen, but there operations within a portion of the hotel—or is no evidence out there right now,” said Sked.