To combat this problem, many hotels are looking for ways to reduce the amount of guestroom linen they have to process each day.
One common strategy that hotels use is to ask their guests to reuse towels and linens. While the reuse of towels is a great way to save on laundry costs, there is no guarantee that guests will follow – or appreciate – this restriction.
Some hotels have resorted to outsourcing their laundry operations. In truth, this merely shifts the costs of doing laundry from your utility and staff expenses to having a new vendor to pay and manage on a regular basis. For some, shifting laundry to being a task handled by an outside agency can be a great solution.
But, is it the best solution for your hotel? External laundry services may not be as responsive as your own in-house operation would be; this is largely because of the time it may take to send your linens to the external company, have them sorted and processed from all of that laundry’s other customers’ items, and then sent back to you.
The challenge is to find a way to reduce utility costs while still providing guests with the best service possible, which means giving them clean linens and towels when they need them.
In recent years, awareness about conservation of resources has been on the rise. Many environmentally-minded guests like to use hotels with green practices and policies. Even the utility companies themselves are starting to get involved with efforts to promote efficiency with common utilities.