Does going “Green” in hotels make you more money?

Well sometimes that can be the case.

Looking at Chemicals used around the hotel and in particular the housekeeping departments can give us some great green and money saving ideas.

Did you know there were 81000 chemicals registered with the EPA in the last 30 years? Reports tell us that fewer than 20% have been tested for toxicity.

Not something we like to hear considering the everyday use of these products.

Going “Green” in the cleaning of hotel guest rooms probably conjures up using well know products like baking soda, white vinegar and salt !

Hardly practical when it comes to cleaning hundreds of rooms everyday.

Health and safety issues in chemicals used for cleaning by hotel staff are pretty well known.

Cost of a sick leave provision for staff is a real issue for management.

Improper use of chemicals and anything that goes down the drain costs money to the hotel and the environment. All well known facts.

So what product has technology bought to us in the last 15 years that is used extensively in hospitals and can resolve all of the issues mentioned earlier?

I won’t give you the answer just yet but I do have some hard facts for you to consider from a 5 star hotel in Sydney that has completed a comprehensive

Trial to prove the true worth of not using chemicals.

They had a 3% higher rating from guest comment cards that room cleanliness was better. This was backed up by a bacterial swab count which came out lower the chemical cleaned surfaces. Infra red light tests for dirt buildup showed negative. And reports, that to the naked eye, glazed and metal surfaces such as sinks and kettles as an example looked to have an enhanced appearance.

“They looked cleaner” Great that’s what keeps the guests happy!!

The trial by the hotel did include costings in terms of products and labour, training and was completed in March 07.

Feedback from the housekeeping staff was very good with comments like

“The method used was less physically strenuous”

“Feel good about less chemical usage and its helping the environment”

“Far less water used”

Chemical costs were reduced by 80% Water usage was down by a million litres.

OK so what are we talking about? Microfiber of course.

Used in hospitals since the 1990s – it’s a water based cleaning solution invented and developed in Sweden in the 1990s.

Just how high tech is Microfiber cloth- well when these guys say the fibre is thinner than human hair, that’s only part of the story.

Actually one square centimeter of Microfiber contains over 30 kilometers of fibre.

But that’s not all round surface threads on a traditional cloth are not really designed to pickup dirt particles. Microfiber secret is the fibres are wedge shaped and that makes the millions of fibres much more effective in trapping the dirt particles.

Hence the reason no chemicals are required.

The cloth is simply washed out with water at the end of the day for re-use the next day.

All in all a genuine Green proven product.

Your Kenson’s Team

For all the visually disabled people; now here’s a reason to smile. New technological developments have made Talking Menus, a reality.

Now you can easily listen to the menu and decide on your favorite dish. The technology was developed by a company in the US with the thought in mind of solving the problem faced by visually impaired people.

However the interesting part is that, this new technology proved to be very helpful in restaurants that have low lit areas, especially during the evening time.

Low lighting levels in restaurants seem to be the norm these days all in the name of creating “atmosphere”.

The Lion and Rose – a famous pub and restaurant based in San Antonio, Texas is one such place where this technology is successfully implemented. Lion and Rose has always taken initiatives to improve quality wise, service wise and keeping up with the emerging technologies.

In an effort of keeping up to its commitment the operators of The Lion and Rose went looking for a technology that could help in reading menus in the low lit areas of the restaurant particularly in the evening time and candle night dinners. A solution was found at a Miami based company – Menus That Talk in December, 2007.

Menus That Talk is a handy electronic device that reads out the items or contents of a menu to its customer.

It is a portable DVD case sized device which helped customers in chandelling the device efficiently. The buttons are lit to enable easy operating in low lit areas and navigating between customizable menus.

The user could easily find buttons even in the darkest place. When the user presses a button on the device, it reads out the option and informs the user about the selected option.

To help the visually disabled, buttons are identified in Braille. The device is a cost effective measure that can eliminate the cost of generating and maintaining the conventional menu cards. All menus can be easily fitted into it no matter how big or small including the restaurants logo.

It also has a detachable speaker and a volume control to adjust according to your privacy. The device can also be paired with the Telecoil based hearing aids.

The menu displays the items categorically viz. seafood, appetizers, steaks, sandwiches and lavish beers etc. The menu is interpreted in both, a male voice and a female voice. Presently the taking menu at Loin and Rose uses a British female voice. It can be changed according to the customer needs.

Since its introduction the talking menu has been amusing every guest at the restaurant. Kids enjoy listening to the menu; adults prefer to listen to the menu rather that reading it. Aged people loved it as they didn’t have to use their spectacles. Management report, this was a great business idea and was worth the spend.