Laundry and housekeeping are two of the most important functions of a hotel or guest house but all too often they get left at the bottom of the priority list. This article looks at how outsourcing your laundry could benefit your business, by allowing you to focus on your customers while making savings at the same time.

Speaking to hoteliers the most important considerations when choosing whether to outsource laundry is cost and quality. Whether you have a large hotel or 3 bedroom guesthouse, laundering bedroom linen is a repetitive and time consuming job, and certainly the less glamorous side to hospitality. Keeping staff motivated or indeed yourself can be difficult, especially if you have lots of other tasks pulling you in different directions, not surprising therefore that attention to detail can be hard to maintain. 

How important linen is to your hotel guests

An article in Hotel magazine; written in September 2015, highlights that 99% of research respondents stated that providing good quality towels and bed linen is important. 97% admitted to checking the cleanliness and quality of these items while a significant 71 percent say they always check. This may come as little surprise to hoteliers, but the research also flagged up how a staggering 96 percent of respondents would be less likely to return if their bed linen and towels are stained or of a poor quality, with 95 percent stating that they would tell others about their bad experience.

Functions most likely to be outsourced in a hotel

A report carried out by www.hotelanalyst.co.uk explains that outsourcing is an effective cost-saving strategy when used properly. The reason for outsourcing is in most cases driven by a desire to reduce costs while at the same time maintaining or even improving the quality of service. This is often the case where the function being outsourced is labour intensive.

Table 5.

“Perfect supply our linen and I find them to be friendly, professional, approachable and flexible. Not only that , the service provided both meets and exceeds my expectations. This compliment comes from someone who has worked with all the big suppliers over two decades of working in hotels- Perfect beats them hands down.” Station Hotel, Carnoustie

Five key advantages to outsourcing your laundry services as a hotel.

• Reduction in fixed costs.  
  The saving on capital expenditure frees up cash flow, easing financial pressures during off peak times. It will also make the business look more attractive to investors which could facilitate  further expansion plan to the hotel facilities.
• Focus on your core business
  Whether you are an owner or manager, it is easily to feel overloaded with tasks across the various functions of the hotel. Outsourcing allows you to focus more on the customer and motivating staff to provide a first class customer service.
• Savings on utilities
  Under capacity loads and under trained staff can result in inefficient use of electricity from in-house laundry services.
• Improved quality
  It can be difficult to motivate and retain in-house laundry staff due to the monotonous of the role.  Training and experience is also required in order to ensure pristine laundry services, and this is not always easily available. By outsourcing you can access a professionally trained team, all focused on delivering high quality services.
• Accurate budgeting & streamlined business operations
  Hospitality is typically a seasonal industry, by outsourcing you can budget ahead and streamline business operations allowing you to be more flexible to change.

What are your thoughts?

How often do you quality check your laundry provision? Do you have back-ups available for when tears or marks are spotted?

If you’d like to read more about Perfect’s hotel laundry service click here