How do you know if your hotel room is really clean amid coronavirus?
It's almost impossible to find a hotel that hasn't introduced a new sanitation program, promising its rooms are squeaky clean and will be coronavirus-free. How do you know if your hotel room is really clean?
"It's difficult to distinguish between legitimate cleaning efforts and public relations," says Sheryl Kline, a professor at the University of Delaware who has researched hotel hygiene. "Anyone can do a visual inspection, and it can look clean. Just because it looks clean does not necessarily mean that it is clean."
Hotels have standard room-cleaning practices, which have been upgraded since the pandemic. But there is no universally accepted way to clean a hotel guest room, says Kline.
"Typically, cleanliness is based on visual inspection. This provides an aesthetic evaluation but not an assessment of the possibility of microbial contamination," she adds.
That hasn't stopped the hotel industry from trying to set standards during the pandemic. Consulting experts, a visual inspection, and taking quick action if you're in a place that doesn't meet your expectation can ensure that you stay in a clean room.
