For hotels with on property laundry operations, or OPL hotels, having the right commercial laundry equipment isn’t just about choosing effective appliances, it’s about ensuring guest satisfaction.
Your guests are relying on you for a good night’s sleep, the perfect pampering bathrobe and crisp table linens for their events. You, in turn, are relying on your washers, dryers and ironers to get the job done. All while you’re looking for how to reduce hotel laundry costs.
Considering the important role your appliances play in the overall customer experience and your property’s bottom line, here are some tips for commercial laundry equipmenttips for hotels.
Start with Luxury Linens & Mind Your Pars
These first two tips aren’t about commercial laundry equipment, per se, but they’re important steps in the process.
Luxury Hotel Linen: If you start by investing in high-quality, long-lasting sheets, towels, tablecloths and other linens, your laundry machines for hotels won’t have to work quite as hard and you’ll get better performance over time. It can be tempting to go with less expensive options, but the impact on guests just isn’t worth it.
Have Enough Pars: If your par level management plan consists of skating by with just enough pars to get by, you aren’t doing your linens, your housekeeping staff or your guests any favors. You’re increasing the wear and tear on your linens, your staff is having to hustle to keep up, potentially leaving your guests left waiting for rooms to be ready.
The recommended number of pars is four: one in use + one in climate-controlled storage + one that just came out of a guest room + one in the laundry.
Think Green
Your OPL hotel is handling mountains of linens every day, churning through a considerable amount of water, gas and electricity.
Choosing energy efficient equipment that can handle a higher volume using less resources will not only save you money in the long run, it will decrease your property’s overall carbon footprint and increase your chances of being named an eco-friendly hotel or resort.
Here are some energy efficiency and time-saving attributes to look out for in each type of commercial laundry equipment for hotels:
Washers: Look for machines with advanced water extraction and rinsing technology so you can use less cleaning chemicals and so that dryers won’t have to work as hard .
Dryers: Keep an eye out for sensors that automatically stop the machines when your hotel linens have achieved a desired level of dryness to prevent overdrying. You’ll both protect your linens and save energy.
In general: Make sure each appliance has controls that are easy to use, which reduces your required training time.
Retire Your Machines for Good
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all of the decisions you need to make in order to upgrade or replace your laundry equipment, it may be time to consider outsourcing to a commercial laundry service.
By shutting down your OPL, you get to leave all of the decision about machines, chemicals, energy efficiency and staff training to one trusted partner who’s in the business of protecting your luxury hotel bedding, towels and other linens.
A large-scale, eco-friendly laundry service saves:
Money: OPL hotels tend to underestimate the cost of their laundry, not taking into account all of the costs, including utilities, labor, chemicals and machine maintenance. Instead of covering all of those disparate costs, the right laundry provider will have just one bill to pay that covers everything, including pickup and deliver.
Space: Your laundry equipment is sitting on valuable real estate at your property that can be converted into retail space, offices or even a spa.
Energy: The high-tech machines at commercial laundry services are specially developed to handle larger loads using smaller amounts of water and energy.
When selecting commercial laundry equipment for OPL hotels, the key is to keep the guest in mind at all times. Consider not just their comfort, but how impressed they’ll be with your commitment to the environment. That may guide you to outsourcing with an eco-friendly laundry service, freeing you up to focus on other parts of the guest experience.
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