After the most grueling year any hotel operator can remember, there’s good news on the horizon: People are yearning to travel.
A recent survey by Amadeus found that 71% of leisure travelers would travel immediately or within 1-3 months of COVID-19 restrictions being lifted. The same survey found that 2 out of 3 travelers agree that COVID-19 prevention measures are important to consider when choosing a hotel. 
The American Hotel and Lodging Association’s 2021 “State of the Hotel Industry” report says that 56% of consumers expect to travel for leisure this year — on par with pre-pandemic years — while business travel lags. Enhanced cleaning and hygiene practices are guests’ second-highest priority, after price.
As hospitality pros prepare for a busier, better travel season, we take a look at how guest expectations and hotel sanitation measures have evolved in the past year.
Hotel Cleaning Procedures
Then: Early in the pandemic, hotel guests were highly anxious about surface cleanliness. Hotel chains rapidly adopted new cleaning protocols involving careful attention to high-touch surfaces. Guests worried, too, about airborne transmission in guestrooms, leading many hotels to leave rooms vacant for 24 hours or more between guest stays.
Now: Recent scientific guidance from the Centers for Disease Control tells us that “touching surfaces is not thought to be a common way that COVID-19 spreads.” We’ve learned, too, that particles that linger in the air for a long time are less of a concern. It is much more common for the coronavirus to spread through close contact with a person who has COVID-19 than through airborne transmission, the CDC advises.
Of course, guests’ expectations are shaped by their feelings and beliefs, not just by science. Ecolab’s Consumer Safety Poll found that enhanced cleaning and mask-wearing are more important to guests than enforced social distancing, so it’s wise to continue visible, stringent cleaning protocols. The AHLA’s Safe Stay guidelines include a hotel sanitation checklist for staff to follow and rules for guests as well.
“Before the pandemic, you wouldn’t want your guests to see anyone cleaning; it was just supposed to get done. Like magic. Now, we want our guests to see us cleaning and making that extra effort,” Carmen Hughes, the director of housekeeping at the Mandarin Oriental Washington, D.C., tells Conde Nast Traveler.
Hotel Technology
Then: The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated many hotels’ efforts to enable contactless interactions with guests: mobile check-in, digital room keys, etc.
Now: Guests have wholeheartedly adopted these changes. 80 percent of hotel guests would download a hotel app for mobile check-in/check-out and hotel info, and 73 percent would download and use an app that lets them open the door to their room, recent research found.
As more of the larger brands pivot to mobile technology, mobile communication is becoming less of a perk and more of an expectation for guests. “These sorts of things are going to filter down to smaller brands, even to the independent hotels,” James Bishop, senior director, global demand partnerships at hotel technology company SiteMinder, tells Hotel Management.
Hotels are also looking into the future and exploring new ways to use technology to streamline guest interactions. Envision touchless bathroom doors as well as voice-activated everything: elevators, lights, window treatments, climate controls, screen controls, etc.
Guestroom Amenities
Then: To make guestrooms easier to clean, hotels removed many familiar standards, such as notebooks, pens, magazines and throw pillows.
Now: Guestroom features remain minimal, without a lot of extras or decorative items. “You don’t realize how much you don’t need those things until you take them out of the room and nobody says anything,” Hughes says.
Guests still require certain amenities, however! These include:
- An in-room coffeemaker with individually wrapped cups, utensils and extras. Hamilton Beach Commercial’s Single-Serve Coffeemaker is compatible with K-CUPs as well as other brands of hot-beverage pods, making it an appealing and economical option.
- In-room hair dryers that are powerful and easy to clean.
- Guestroom irons, such as the Hamilton Beach Commercial line with a Duration® soleplate that’s 10 times more durable than traditional nonstick.
Discover Hamilton Beach Commercial’s full line of in-room and extended stay guestroom amenities.
