Pedicures via Perspex – the country hotel way to reopen

GUESTS at some of the country’s leading hotels are to be given beauty treatments through Perspex screens, receive their newspapers on tablet computers and have their temperatures checked on arrival, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.

The Iconic Luxury hotel group, whose portfolio includes the five-star country house Chewton Glen on the edge of the New Forest, said it had drawn up a post-lockdown regime to allow guests to return from July 4, the earliest point the hospitality sector will be able to restart.

Andrew Stembridge, executive director of the group, said it was already taking bookings but warned that the sector needed “clarity” from the Government on social distancing and protective equipment guidelines.

To make the hotel Covid-secure, guests can check-in over email, before being taken directly to their rooms, which will have been cleaned with electrostatic fogging cleaners to sanitise the air and furnishings.

Inside the room, morning papers will be available on a tablet, complimentary fruit will be wrapped and the TV remote control will come in a sealed bag.

To wander the hotel, guests will be provided with face masks, like the staff, and only limited bookings will be allowed in the restaurant, with other guests dining in their rooms. The hotel is also having plexiglass screens installed in its beauty treatment room, which guests can slide hands and feet through for manicures and pedicures.

Meanwhile, Ukhospitality, the hotel industry body, said the Government urgently needed to lay out clear rules for how hotels could make their environments Covid-secure. The body estimates a million jobs are at risk if they cannot reopen safely on July 4.

Kate Nicholls, chief executive of Ukhospitality, said: “The biggest thing for confidence is a clear date for reopening. Nobody is going to book a holiday otherwise.”