I consider housekeeping to be the heart of hotels and it is only when something goes wrong that it is recognized – just like our hearts.

The first thing that comes to our mind when we talk about the word housekeeping is cleanliness. Every time we enter a five star hotel, the reason why it still looks new and the same every time is because of the Housekeeping department. These Housekeepers work day in and day out in shifts to maintain the standards of the hotel. The aesthetic appeal helps the guest to form a first impression about the hotel.

To run a successful hotel, the Housekeeping department plays a crucial role. Even when the hotel’s service is not up to the standards, a clean environment or more specifically a clean room could bring back guests again.

Running a successful Housekeeping department is not an easy task. The Executive Housekeeper needs to be very flexible and spontaneous in dealing with guests. With so many websites coming up, which has eased the process of making reservations. The guestis given the chance to compare the tariffs and then choose what suits him the best.

However, the clients also has the opportunity to read reviews of guests who have already experienced the hospitality. The hotel needs to maintain their standards always. With increased market competition even small mistakes could lose guests. Since the appearance and cleanliness is the first thing guest’s talk about, the Housekeeping department need to be on their toes.

In any hotel, managing staff is the biggest task faced by the employer. When it comes to the Housekeeping department it involves hard labor with long working hours. It is not easy to motivate the employees as it is monotonous and tiring. The management should always take the necessary steps to reduce the high employee turnover.

Hotels nowadays are using color-coding to differentiate between the various chemicals and wiping products used to clean different areas. The staff can co-relate the colour to the specific wiping product.

The other option used by hotels is where certain common problems are pre-numbered. This way the staff just need to see which problem comes under what number and they could work with ease. Other training facilities are also available.

The lighting in hotels has seen a lot of changes in the past few years. The LED strips have taken the lime light of lighting. Even though they are expensive, hotels have understood that their benefits far outweigh the costs. However, with further improvisation hotels have come up with this new idea of using ‘ceiling motion sensor lighting’. They in turn help in reducing the costs of the hotel even more. However, these sensors reduce the life of the lights marginally but significantly increase the longevity of the lamps.

These motion sensors work either through infrared signals or ultrasonic waves. They work according to motion or difference in the body temperature.

Many hotels feel that this motion sensor has helped them in a huge way because it helps in saving energy in areas which aren’t in use that often. Especially in very large hotels where the public areas are not used. The savings in light energy help hotels to increase their earnings in net income by 2 percent. And in a country like the United States, where hotels is the third largest industry these trends help the hotels in a huge way.

Tiny fridges found in hotel rooms stocked up with alcoholic beverages, canned juices and aerated drinks are called as minibars. They can be found in almost every hotel. It used to be a luxury but as time went by almost all hotels started having minibars in their rooms.

Lately, many hotels all over the world have slowly stopped providing guests with minibars in the room. These minibars proved to be costly and managing them was very exhaustive. Many guests do not use the minibar facilities, as they are priced very high.

 Famous five star hotel chains has come up with this unique concept called “FEED THE FRIDGE”. In this program the hotel has completely stopped filling up the minibars with goodies and beverages. Instead the hotel asks the guests what he/she would prefer before their arrival. This new initiative by the hotel was very different compared to other hotels as it also reduced the burden on the Housekeeping department.

The hotel also offers the guest with various packages, where the guests can pre order during reservation. This way the guest can choose what they want and use.

A new broom sweeps clean; but an old broom knows the corners.

Over the years, there have been improvements for the housekeeping department that made cleaning of rooms faster and easier. With the increase in demand for rooms, the need to clean the room quickly and sell is very crucial. Since there are many hotels, the need to maintain good guest relations is very important.

Many companies have come out with equipment’s that has made maintenance and cleaning easy for the housekeepers. One such company called DUPLEX SOLUTIONS.

This company came up with a unique technology that cleans rooms quickly using dry steam at very high temperatures. This equipment are specialized to clean specific areas. Even though cleaning is a very time consuming job, this equipment reduces the time to clean a room.

Plunge pool: It is a small shallow pool built for the purpose of lounging, wading, and cooling off instead for a swimming and exercising. Many of them prefer them because of their lower cost, smaller size, easier maintenance and reduceds water requirement.

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Xeros bead cleaning (environment friendly practice): This company specializes in making washing machines which help hotels to clean linen in a very eco-friendly manner. They have come up with a unique technology through which the linen are washed through polymer technology. Even though water is the primary resource used for cleaning, this technology enhances the water used and helps in reducing the amount of water used compared to the regular washing machines.

Hotel linen tracking system: Hotels need to make sure that the linen are properly managed. If not the hotel would incur high operational costs which would pull down the net profit. Many large scale hotels need to keep a proper tracking management system. This would help them in the long run.

Among the various companies, key tone came up with the unique use of RFID. This technology helps the hotel to track down the linen. It shows a detailed description of where the linen is being dispatched. This way the Housekeeper can keep track of his linen. Bad linen management is the major problem is small scale hotels. This technology helps the hotel to come out of this problemBottom of Form

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Mobile Check-in has been around for the last few years but will hit full stride quickly as the technology has been refined. Just about every guest has a smartphone and if a guest does not actually utilize mobile check-in by going directly to their room, they will show up at a pod rather than a formal front desk. In the future, these pods will be tablet based kiosks like we see in the airport.

A guest can pick their room directly from their phone and the door lock will be programmed to only open when that mobile device is nearby. Taking this idea into the rooms themselves, some brands have begun to move away from having the traditional guestroom phone. Instead, they opt for an in-room tablet that controls every aspect of the room. Ideally, these two sets of technology will be merged into one so that a guest can control everything directly from their mobile device.

Hospitality Tray − It is a small tray with compartments that holds sachets of coffee, tea, cocoa powder, creamer, and sugar. Some hotels also offer the sachets of condiments like black and white pepper powder, and salt. They also keep an electric kettle, a couple of cups, saucers, spoons, and water bottle so that the guest can make the beverage of his choice once in a day.

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IPHA: Indian Professional Housekeepers Association

IPHA is just an year old education organization for individuals involved in or directly affiliated with housekeeping in hotel, hospitals, facilities management and allied professionals. The aim is to grow develop and connect to the laundry worldwide .They also come up with various other activities to introduce quality in the housekeeping department.

Conclusion

Innovations, new ideas and technology is applied in the day to day operations. Reducing cost of operations, labour, and working with technology that is environment friendly and less loading on the budget and environment are the need of the hour. Some capital  investments  and changes from routine might look hefty and difficult to accommodate, but time and experience has shown that these changes are here to stay and constant change and upgrading is required to stay ahead in business and lead.