Context

Hotels have well established procedures for cleaning guest bedrooms and communal areas, an essential part of which is the removal of unpleasant odours caused by smoking, damp, food preparation and other environmental contaminants.  The main problem faced by housekeepers is how to make rooms suitable for speedy re-occupation when noxious odours are ingrained into soft furnishings including carpets, curtains and bed coverings.

Typically they have relied on a mix of chemical cleaners and machinery, ranging from air fresheners and other artificial sprays through to carpet cleaning machines and chemical defogging equipment.

However traditional technology often only masks unpleasant smells rather than permanently removing them.

The effects on a hotel business can be substantial with rooms out of service for extended periods, higher labour and material costs, poor guest satisfaction scores and costly refunds being given to unhappy customers.

Using the natural properties of ozone

By incorporating Ozone Clean Ltd's ozone generators into their cleaning process, hotels have been able to harness the natural cleaning properties of ozone to restore air quality much more quickly than traditional methods. Guest rooms are brought back into service in as little as 15 minutes as ozone permanently removes all odours from all surfaces, including soft furnishings.

The mobile OC1500 Natural Cleaner has proved to be both versatile and easy to use with its user-friendly controls and compact and sturdy design. Users report that the effects on both cleaning times and guest satisfaction are very positive.

As the Executive Housekeeper of a major international hotel in central London commented:

"The Ozone Clean machine does a fantastic job. We use it every single day and it solves all our problems with damp, smoking and other odours."

The environmental benefits

Results of a survey of hotels that had used Ozone Clean's equipment for at least 3 months identified the following environmental benefits:

• 40% confirmed they had reduced their usage of air fresheners by 15-25% and the remainder had reduced their usage by at least 10%.
• 35% confirmed they had reduced the need to specialist clean curtains by 40%, 30% had reduced the need by 15-25% and the remainder by up to 10%.
• 30% confirmed they had almost completely eliminated the use of steam cleaners and shampoo machines to solve odour problems, with the remainder reducing their use by 15-25%.
• Anecdotal evidence suggests air freshener ordering patterns have changed significantly although commercial confidentiality precluded actual figures being available.
• 100% of the hotels confirmed that the ozone generators are being used for a minimum of 5 hours per day.

 The commercial benefits

Hotels have benefited through:

• A significant reduction in out-of-service times with rooms being returned to the revenue stream much more quickly than previously.
• An increase in guest satisfaction scores and a consequent reduction in guest refunds.
• An improvement in operational efficiency through quicker and more efficient cleaning times.
• An improvement in employee job satisfaction through deployment of user friendly and greener cleaning equipment.