Ensuring hospitality facility readiness during the festive season

The holiday season brings a surge in guest traffic for hotels, restaurants, and event venues. With higher expectations and longer operating hours, hospitality businesses must be ready to deliver exceptional experiences. Maintaining high standards of cleaning and hygiene is essential during the festive season when customer traffic in commercial spaces increases resulting in facilities experiencing significant stress. Proper cleaning and hygiene management assists facilities handle the festive rush, providing a clean, safe, and welcoming environment for both visitors and staff.

Hygiene matters during the holidays

Increased foot traffic during the Festive season puts pressure on every part of a facility. Without a proactive cleaning and hygiene strategy, hospitality venues risk:

• Overcrowded and understocked washrooms

• Unpleasant odours in guest-facing areas

• Higher risk of cross-contamination

• Negative guest reviews and reputational damage These issues not only impact guest satisfaction but also affect staff morale and operational efficiency.

Cleanliness standards in hotels

In hotels, cleanliness goes beyond aesthetics, guests expect a hygienic environment to relax and unwind. Guest rooms should be thoroughly cleaned and sanitised between stays. This includes vacuuming carpets, moving furniture, steam-cleaning mattresses, sanitising high-touch surfaces like remote controls and light switches and replacing linens and towels. Providing sealed toiletries reassures guests that items are untouched.

Public areas like lobbies, elevators, and gym facilities require constant attention. These high-traffic spaces should be cleaned multiple times a day, with a focus on disinfecting handrails, buttons and other shared surfaces. Shared dining spaces, such as buffets, present unique challenges. Food stations should be regularly restocked and wiped down to prevent spills or contamination.

Utensils should be changed frequently, and sneeze guards must be cleaned as part of the daily routine. Clear signage reminding guests to use serving utensils instead of their hands can also help maintain hygiene standards.

Sanitation and food safety

Whether you are managing a restaurant or a hotel, cleanliness and food safety go hand-in-hand to create a welcoming, safe environment for both guests and employees.

Proper storage techniques, such as keeping raw food separate from cooked ones, help prevent crosscontamination. Labels indicating expiration dates ensure no expired items end up in dishes. Temperature control is equally critical. Hot foods should be kept above 60°C and cold foods below 4°C to prevent bacteria growth. Regularly calibrating thermometers and monitoring temperatures during storage and service helps maintain these standards.

Hotel and restaurant kitchens

As the hospitality and catering sector heads into its busiest trading period, operators are being advised to bring forward essential deep cleaning and maintenance. With December calendars already filling up, October and November provide a crucial window for ensuring kitchens are safe, compliant, and ready to cope with festive demand.

Deep cleaning and compliance

For commercial kitchens, deep cleaning is not just about presentation. Accumulated grease and grime can quickly become a fire hazard, particularly within extraction systems. Health and safety guidance is clear: failing to keep ventilation systems clean can invalidate insurance and put both staff and customers at risk.

By scheduling a thorough clean ahead of Christmas, operators can protect their businesses and ensure compliance with industry standards.

Ventilation and equipment performance

Refrigeration, cooking equipment, and mechanical ventilation systems all play a vital role in keeping kitchens running efficiently. Without regular maintenance, equipment failures and hygiene issues become more likely, often at the very moment demand is highest. Preventative servicing and cleaning to regulatory standards help reduce the risk of breakdowns and ensure a smooth service during peak times. Forward planning is key. Those who secure their kitchen preparation in the weeks ahead will be best placed to deliver safe, compliant, and uninterrupted service throughout the festive season.

Pest control

Pests can quickly ruin a business’s reputation. Preventative measures include sealing cracks, maintaining proper waste disposal and scheduling routine pest inspections. Any signs of pests should be addressed immediately with professional help.

Hand hygiene in hospitality

Food handlers should ensure that they don’t contaminate food through illness or unclean habits.

Be clean and careful

• Wash and dry hands thoroughly.

• Stop hair, clothes, jewellery, or phones touching food or surfaces (e.g. tie hair back, remove loose jewellery, cover open wounds).

• Don’t touch ready-to-eat food with bare hands – use tongs or gloves.

• Wear clean clothing and aprons.

• Do not eat, spit, smoke, sneeze, blow, or cough over food or surfaces that touch food.

Inform your supervisor if you think you are unwell or have contaminated food in any way.

Secrets of proper handwashing

• Use the sink provided exclusively for handwashing.

• Wet hands under warm running water.

• Lather them with soap and thoroughly scrub fingers, palms, wrists, back of hands, and under nails for about 15 seconds.

• Rinse hands under warm running water.

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