A hotel

The public might not want to return to airports, hotels and restaurants until they're sure that they have improved their cleaning processes, reports Forbes.

Marketing analytics software company SEMrush recently looked into consumer trends on Google. The company found that searches asking if it was "safe to fly" increased by more than 3,600 percent between February and March. Similarly, inquiries regarding the safety of hotels increased by more than 20,000 percent.

Given the current COVID-19 pandemic, Forbes suspects that when people are asking if a hotel or airport is safe, they're really asking if it's clean. And what society defines as "clean," Forbes argues, could be dramatically different in the future than it was before 2020.

Once businesses open back up, they'll have to answer to a public that knows a whole lot more about their cleaning protocols than before. Forbes sites a survey from Vital Vio, which found that 82 percent of Americans are more aware of or concerned with cleanliness and cleaning protocols than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic. More than half of those surveyed by Vital Vio say they are less confident in the hygiene of their peers.

Number seldom lie and the statistics shown here seem to suggest that the low paid, underappreciated cleaning teams might be the ones to save the hotel, restaurant and travel industries.