YOUR HOSTS ARE GETTING READY FOR YOU
‘CONTACTLESS’ IS THE NEW BUZZWORD AT HOTELS AND AIRBNBS. APPS ARE IN, HAIR DRYERS ARE OUT
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ET ’S BE honest: Staying in a hotel has a certain ick factor. I’m talking about you, hotel remote control. I’m calling you out, elevator buttons. And although you’re there to clean, housekeeper, I’m comfortable only with just me in my room.
Those things were true before coronavirus, and they’re more so now. In the wake of a pandemic that has sickened more than 2 million people in the U.S. and created a certain unease about traveling, lodgings are upping their game.
What that means for you, travelers, is myriad changes in your experience. Some are high tech; some are low or no tech; and some are just common sense. But all of them are part of the new reality of getting away from it all, and that includes the virus.
We should note what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said about transmission of the coronavirus: It “is thought to spread mainly from person to person, mainly through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes.”
But, the CDC said last month in a statement, “It may be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose or possibly their eyes.”
Here are some ways your stay will change in an effort to place a barrier between you and the virus.
Part of the conundrum of welcoming hotel guests lies in the definition of hospitality, which Webster’s defines as the “solicitous entertainment of guests.” Delivering a warm greeting becomes more difficult when your face is covered.
In a quest to keep human transactions to a minimum, you’re more apt to interact with your app, which means you’re a couple of steps ahead if you’re comfortable with a smart phone.
Hilton, which encompasses 18 hotel brands, on Monday rolled out its CleanStay program, which lets guests check in, select their room, receive a digital key and check out, all by using its app.
Guests can book directly on Hilton.com or use the Hilton Honors app, “which provides them a number of contactless options,” Jen Nycz-Conner, director of brand communications, said in an email.
“They can select their room from digital hotel floor plans as well as check in digitally. Upon arrival, they can quickly bypass the front desk and head straight to their room. This makes the entire arrival process contactless.”
You can still go the personal checkin route, of course, and let your comfort level dictate your degree of interaction.
When you arrive at your Hilton room, Nycz-Conner said, you should find a small seal on the door that indicates no one entered the room after the housekeeper left.
To keep it that way, most hotels will allow you to forgo daily in-room cleaning.
Just as airlines are removing seatback magazines, Hilton and others are removing visitor literature; they're also eliminating pens and paper from rooms and paying extra attention to disinfecting remotes, thermostats and other high-touch areas.
Wyndham is removing hair dryers and ironing boards, although they’ll
be available on request. The hotel and resorts company, which has 6,000 properties, had a running start on some other hoteliers because about 90% of its hotels stayed open, said Lisa Checchio, chief marketing officer for Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, and it has had time to put cleaning protocols in place.
The company details those on its website, including a short video at lat.ms/wyndhamsafetyvideo.
Marriott also is turning its app into a workhorse: Besides allowing guests to check in and check out, “If the guest arrives late at night and hungry, they can order a meal from the hotel restaurant using Mobile Dining on the app at more than 300 properties or room service using the app’s chat feature,” said John Wolf, a vice president of public relations and global affairs. “If they do order room service, we are introducing contactless meal delivery.”
Social distancing is in play as well. Marriott, for example, has rearranged the furniture in common areas, Wolf said, to keep guests farther apart.
AIRBNB > Airbnb, the giant in shared spaces to rent, has implemented strict cleaning protocols, informed, it said, by the CDC and with input from Dr. Vivek Murthy, former surgeon general of the United States.
Hosts have one advantage over hotels, said Chris Lehane, vice president of global policy and communications for Airbnb: There is no intermediary — no front desk or hotel employees between you and your room.
Airbnb guests have “complete control over [their] housing environment,” Lehane said. “No one else has access to it once you’re there. There are no common spaces. You’re effectively controlling your environment,” including meals prepared and eaten at the home and laundry done by you.
Airbnb asks owners to certify they have met a set of cleaning standards, the site said. If they cannot do that, Airbnb will leave spaces empty, called a Booking Buffer, for 72 hours in U.S. properties.
Are consumers confident about Airbnb? Lehane thinks they are. The Airbnb platform is getting “more than 100 million page views a month,” he said, which is at pre-pandemic levels.
Searches for urban properties are up 20%, he said, driven by two kinds of guests: those who are visiting from out of town but do not want to stay with family or friends, and those who live in the area and want to trade in their four walls, of which they’ve grown weary, for a weekend away.