A blue male and female restroom sign

Contributed by Cintas.

With Labor Day approaching, many people will hit the road for a weekend trip and will inevitably need to stop for a restroom break. A new poll* found that more than half of Americans (56 percent) feel it can be difficult to find a clean restroom while on the road.

“No one wants to use a public restroom that doesn’t meet their standards, and this research shows that many feel it is difficult to find a clean restroom while traveling and will refuse to use one that is dirty,” said Jillian Bauer, Marketing Manager, Cintas. “To create a welcoming space for guests and avoid customer complaints, businesses must regularly maintain their restrooms, ensuring surfaces are clean, messes are contained to receptacles and essentials are stocked at all times.”

The poll also found that cleanliness matters, especially to women:

• More than half (54 percent) of Americans have passed on using a public restroom because it was too dirty for them.
    • Women are more likely than men to avoid unkempt restrooms, with 60 percent saying they had passed on using a public restroom because it was too dirty, while only 49 percent of men have done so.
• More than two-thirds of Americans (69 percent) say cleanliness is a factor they consider when looking for a restroom while on the road.
    • Women are more likely than men to factor in cleanliness (72 percent vs. 66 percent)

Cintas does offer a free mobile restroom-finder app — Got to Go — which allows users to find clean restrooms in their vicinity and rate them based on cleanliness. The app provides a map that differentiates restrooms according to color and ratings (green for top-rated, clean restrooms yellow for low-rated, dirty restrooms and blue for unrated restrooms).

*This survey, commissioned by Cintas Corporation, was conducted online by The Harris Poll, August 17-21, 2018, among 2,038 U.S. adults ages 18 and older.