Guests tend to take the pristine nature of hotel entrances and lobbies for granted. Similarly, these facilities could be losing business because prospective guests translate a messy public area into a messy guest room. Visitor expectations regarding these critical public areas require an extraordinary cleaning regimen from resident housekeepers.

How aggressive the regimen is depends on factors such as people traffic, interior design, furnishing and contents, and the possibility of exposure to natural outdoor elements.

Maui Coast Hotel
The lobby of Hawaii’s 265-room Maui Coast Hotel is open to the elements on three sides, blurring lines between hotel and nature.

Wrought-iron chandeliers hang from the two-story ceiling, attracting moths, insects and spiders.

“Since our weather is tropical, it seems like we simply turn around and a spider has started a web,” says Kathryn Pascual, housekeeping manager. “It’s just a constant job to keep up with them — spider webs are commonly attributed to lack of care.” The Maui Coast Hotel housekeeping staff (those in charge of public areas are called housemen) sees to it that webs are removed, if necessary, using fibrous lambswool dusters with extension handles that allow workers to reach crevices and corners.

Moisture and humidity are also a concern and a housekeeping priority. Floor-to-ceiling sliding-glass doors protect fine carpets from rain and strong winds. Asian rugs are dry-cleaned monthly and vacuumed daily, reinvigorating the air-freshening agents left by the dry-cleaning compound. Floor-to-ceiling wooden louvers can be drawn to provide even more protection from the elements. Housemen keep natural slate floors vibrant and stain-free with twice-a-day mopping and quarterly stripping and sealing.

Housemen staff also keeps an eye on public vending and guest laundry areas.
“Accountability is key,” says Pascual.

Library Hotel
In Manhattan, the 60-room, four-star Library Hotel has 10 floors dedicated to books — about 10,000 volumes in need of constant care. In addition to guest rooms, many books are shelved in public areas including the lobby, reading room, and even the public restrooms.

In the lobby, built-in, floor-to-ceiling mahogany bookshelves keep housekeepers busy. Every four to six weeks, workers remove all books and clean the shelves with oil soap.

Adjacent big-city traffic makes keeping the dark mahogany paneling, door frame and glass grime-free a challenge.

“You can clean a window, and half an hour later swipe it with a white handkerchief and see the black,” says executive housekeeper Jose Cespedes. A houseman cleans the glass every 15 to 30 minutes with a combination of glass cleaner and white vinegar, and air vents are cleaned and filters checked frequently. “If [guests] see dust, they don’t believe we cleaned last night,” says Cespedes.

The reading room is also lined with mahogany paneling and bookshelves, has 60 stuffed chairs, and doubles as breakfast and cocktail gathering space for up to 100 people. Reading lamps are dusted weekly — the shades with a special vacuum tool.

“It’s hard because most guests spend all day there reading, or working with laptops,” says Cespedes. “It’s a challenge to keep them clean. I prepare my people to be very understanding, that we have to let guests feel comfortable and not push them. I prefer they enjoy the books, feel free to be there and appreciate the experience. Then we clean.”

Hyatt Regency Boston
There is a lot of foot traffic at the 498-room Hyatt Regency Boston — connected to an office building and a Macy’s department store.

“The first impression off the street is important,” says executive housekeeper Tamika Norris. “If the marble is not polished, etc., it starts people’s minds going, and then they’re looking for inconsistency.”

Combating tarnish from tracked-in snow and salt, especially inside the grooves of elevator tracks, is a priority. The porters keep tracks clean with soft brushes to prevent scratching. They also continually wipe down the elevator glass to remove smudges and fingerprints.

Once a month, a contractor polishes and repairs damage to the marble in the lobby and public restrooms. Norris says that carefully specified manual vacuums complement the hotel’s “green” mission.

Similar to other hotels, the Hyatt’s staff dry-cleans carpet, while porters perform spot removal, as needed.

“The dry-cleaning system really takes care of it,” says rooms executive Shaheryar Adil. “Every time the floor is vacuumed it helps remove stains. We run the machine on each area once a month. The solution looks like a sponge that’s been diced into small pieces, and there’s a small amount of moisture in the solution, plus cleaning chemicals.”

Adil explains that the machine first vacuums, then grinds the solution into the carpet so it attaches to soil that is eventually vacuumed from the carpet.

Blue Harbor Resort
Blue Harbor Resort and Conference Center in Sheboygan, Wis., has 183 rooms and condos that cater to business travelers and families. The 5,000-square-foot lobby was designed to withstand water and sand from rain, snow, traffic from the adjacent waterpark, Lake Michigan — just steps away — and even the lobby’s glass fountain.

“We had to put a 36-inch band of tile all the way around to avoid wetness on the carpet and a mildew smell,” says general manager Josef Haas.

The fountain is cleaned as its designer prescribed — every other week, with a glass cleaner and long, soft-stick brush that gently removes chlorine residue.

Office manager Nick Hovee says activities for children are sometimes hosted in the lobby. Activities include gluing, painting and cookie decorating. Two-way radios allow employees to notify one another of food spills.

The water park also presents unique cleaning challenges: constant vacuuming, towel laundering and debris collection from the 200 meals served daily. Showers accommodate as many as 1,000 people per day. These areas are mopped at least three times daily, and when the park closes at 10 p.m. “a common area” staff team wipes everything down to prevent chlorine stains, and uses a sponge compound to clean the grout.

“It’s a continuous effort to ensure they’re absolutely impeccable,” Haas says.

‘You never get that second chance’
Hotel guests want great design and a unique experience. Keeping these spaces clean and tidy may be more of a challenge, but it’s taken for granted by guests.

“The first impression is the most important thing,” says Library Hotel’s Spitzer. “You never really do get that second chance. From an exposure standpoint, [the lobby] might be the only part of the entire property that [visitors] see.”

Lauren Summerstone is a free-lance writer based in Madison, Wis.




POSTED ON: 11/1/2005