How Hotels Can Reduce Laundry Costs and Preserve Linens

Hotelier Indonesia - How hotels can reduce laundry costs and preserve linens

by Elliott Mest | Feb 22, 2017 11:56am | Hotel Management

Modern laundry equipment has never been more energy efficient, sustainable and conducive to maintaining and extending the life of linens, but it’s all for nothing if laundry operators are overloading machines with too many sheets. That’s why a growing number of hotels are choosing to outsource their own laundry operations, but for those that choose to keep these facilities in-house, the timing couldn’t be better.

“Overall, the quality of in-house laundry operations has gone up, simply because hotels in general are striving to provide a better level of service,” said Seth Willer, national sales manager for laundry equipment provider Continental Girbau. “They want to differentiate from others, and the guestroom bed is a great place to differentiate.”

Willer said that hotels choosing to handle their own linens can utilize a number of different back-of-house strategies to shave costs and preserve their linens. For instance, he said if a hotel has an on-property ironing system, operators should consider taking sheets directly from the washer to the ironer, skipping the dryer and cutting out the process entirely.

“The preconception is that you have to run your ironer at a certain speed, say you want to process 10 sheets per minute,” Willer said.

“If you eliminate the dryer completely you may only be able to process six sheets per minute, but there will be no downtime waiting for linen to dry, and you’ll also cut out all those extra utilities.”

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Image Courtessy of Golden State Laundry Systems