U.S. hotels are considering reducing cleaning staff and services such as daily housekeeping as they struggle to shelve a large enough portion of their workforce before COVID-19 The Washington Post.
Despite increased awareness and recognition of the important role of housekeeping and housekeeping staff, it is believed that hotels are wondering if customers would be satisfied with less services like limited housekeeping during a stay.
Michael Bellisario, an analyst at financial firm Robert W. Baird & Co., told the Post that many hotels are considering permanently cutting down services such as dry cleaning and free breakfast.
“Owners and operators are taking advantage of the pandemic and the opportunity to cut costs and change the operating model permanently or at least temporarily because it was already an issue,” said Bellisario.
According to Bellisario, these potential reductions come after years of slow growth and rising costs for hotels. The pandemic has also opened the eyes of many operators to various alternative business models.
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In the meantime, guests are rethinking what they want from a hotel stay. A survey by the American Hotel and Lodging Association in August 2020 found that nearly two-thirds of travelers said they didn’t want or need daily housekeeping.
“The vast majority of our clients don’t want us to clean their rooms while they stay with us,” said Robert Kline, the CEO and co-founder of Chartres Lodging Group, a private equity investment firm focused on accommodation, said the New York Times last year. “They want to know that the room is clean when they come in, but as soon as they walk in they say, ‘Don’t come in.'”
This could lead to an opt-in rather than an opt-out system for hotel cleaning.
However, while daily room cleaning was stopped in many hotels during the pandemic to contain the spread of the virus, housekeepers warn that this means that those who are still employed will be left with a much higher workload. Housekeepers also said they felt more unsafe cleaning up rooms that were sometimes occupied for days or weeks.
