HOSPITALITY INSIGHT
New mobile housekeeping app Drives cost reductions and staff efficiency improvements of up to 50 per cent
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uadriga, a global provider of guest-facing technology solutions for the hospitality industry, has announced an innovative new mobile application for housekeeping services, designed to reduce costs and deliver improved efficiencies for hoteliers. Via an exclusive global agreement with partner Hibox Systems, Finland, the new 'Housekeeper' application is proven to deliver an average 50 per cent reduction in the time required to carry out housekeeping and hotel support tasks, enhanced staff communication, as well as powerful reporting capabilities. Building on its growing range of mobile applications and cloud-based services, Housekeeper provides an alternative to Quadriga's established, fixed TV-based housekeeping solution, integrated into its Sensiq
guest communications and entertainment platform. The Hibox Housekeeper application is a web-based service which can be hosted in the cloud and provides hotel staff with easy and immediate reporting capabili-
ties via most web-enabled mobile devices. Services include the reporting of room status to the hotel PMS, minibar usage and rooms fault reporting and management, as well as a staff messag-
ing tool. Housekeeper is already deployed in hotels across the Nordic region and is now available worldwide. Juha Peltonen, hotel manager, Hotel Haikko Manor, Porvoo, Finland, says,
"The Housekeeper application gives us an easy-to-use tool to manage the housekeeping tasks. With quicker response and improved communication with the housekeeping staff we are able to better serve our guests and get a real-time picture of the room status. Also we are able to reduce the housekeeping costs with improved monitoring and reporting." Paul Wilson, Quadriga's partnership and product director, says, "The new Hibox Housekeeper application is designed to deliver valuable and tangible business benefits to our customers. Quadriga's flexible approach to integrating technologies and working with 'best of breed partners' means we are able to deliver customer solutions that are based on the latest technology, meet real business needs and make commercial sense."
Study finds stain removal is the top challenge in hotel laundry
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n a recent study conducted by Satisfaction Management Systems, a Minneapolisbased market research and consulting firm, 70 per cent of laundry professionals in the lodging industry said stain removal presents their biggest challenge. In response to research data and feedback from studies conducted with 300 cus-
32 FOOD & HOSPITALITY WORLD November 16-30, 2013
tomers, Ecolab has improved its StainBlaster product line to effectively tackle the toughest stains and help produce the best results – clean, white and soft laundry. “With linen replacement accounting for up to 25 per cent of overall laundry costs, removing stains and extending linen life is essential in today’s lodging laun-
dry operations,” says Jim Tarara, vice president of R&D & engineering for Ecolab’s global institutional business. “The inability to remove stains effectively not only wastes money, it can also impact guest satisfaction ratings and harm a brand’s reputation,” he adds. Tarara added that average life of a bath towel is 50 turns,
hand towels last about 25 turns and washcloths 10 turns with a 'turn' defined as once through the entire laundry process - sorting, pre-treating, washing, drying, folding and placing the clean linen in a guest room for use. For a typical 150-room hotel, the average cost of doing laundry is more than US$ 200 per day. Over a year’s time, a
150-room hotel will spend approximately US$ 75,000 on its laundry operation, and of that total, about US$ 18,750 or 25 percent will be for linen replacement. By effectively removing stains, a hotel can help optimise its laundry operation and save money by reducing the need to purchase new linens.