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Enhanced Hotel Room Cleaning: Environmental Microbiological Sampling Investigation in a Midscale Hotel Property
Alberto A. Beiza, PhD Conrad N. Hilton College of Global Hospitality Leadership, University of Houston Zahra H. Mohammad, PhD Conrad N. Hilton College of Global Hospitality Leadership,
University of Houston Cathy Cheatham, MS
Conrad N. Hilton College of Global Hospitality Leadership,
University of Houston Sujata A. Sirsat, PhD
Conrad N. Hilton College of Global Hospitality Leadership, University of Houston
pandemic (Li et al., 2021; Qi & Chen, 2023; Sawang et al., 2023). Further, Jiang and Wen (2020) emphasize the need to integrate hotel hygiene and cleanliness into marketing and management strategies and consider how guests perceive the cleanliness of specific ho- tel surfaces. They also recommend further re- search into the evolving relationship between the hospitality and healthcare sectors. Many hotels have placed an emphasis on cleaning practices and have incorporated im- ages related to cleanliness and safety messag- ing into their marketing strategies (Herédia- Colaço & Rodrigues, 2021; Jiménez-Barreto et al., 2021; Peco-Torres et al., 2021). To re- store and maintain consumer confidence in safe travel, several leading hotel brands have partnered with sanitation companies to implement enhanced cleaning programs that target high-touch surfaces in lodging operations (Ecolab, 2021; Hilton, 2021; IHG, 2021; Marriott, 2021; Reckitt, 2021; Wynd- ham Hotels, 2021). Although this enhanced cleaning is a step in the right direction, hotels still rely only on visual assessment as a measure of cleanliness and do not take into consideration the bac- teria or organic matter that could be present on surfaces found in the guest rooms (Al- manza et al., 2015). Moreover, studies have highlighted the ineffectiveness of relying on visual assessment as an indicator of environ- mental and surface cleanliness (Almanza et al., 2015; Inkinen et al., 2020; Shimoda et al., 2015; Xu, Weese, et al., 2015). Studies that have identified and quanti- fied biological contaminants (e.g., bacteria)
Abstract The purpose of our study was to illustrate the efficacy of an enhanced cleaning process during a pandemic by quantifying generic and pathogenic microorganisms before and after cleaning in hotel rooms. The objectives of our study were to: 1) sample high-touch surfaces before and after the rooms were cleaned and 2) swab high-touch surfaces using an adenosine triphosphate (ATP) meter before and after the rooms were cleaned. Overall, 10 rooms and 37 surfaces per room were sampled before and after cleaning. The results showed that several areas of the room had a higher Staphylococcus aureus , aerobic plate, and E.coli /coliform counts after cleaning, suggesting that contaminated towels were being used to clean various surfaces in the rooms. In addition, we found no correlation between microbial counts and ATP meter readings. These results show that a more effective method needs to be assessed for practitioners to effectively quantify environmental safety in hotel rooms. Keywords: pandemic, lodging industry, cleaning, microbiology, environment, housekeeping, public health, hotel
Introduction Historically, hotel rooms have been linked with major bacterial and viral outbreaks, including outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease in 2015 (Ahmed et al., 2019) and 2017 (Yack- ley et al., 2018), Norwalk-like virus in 1996 (Cheesbrough et al., 2000) and 2012 (Raj et al., 2017), severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003 (Bell, 2004), and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS- CoV-2) in 2021 (Leong et al., 2021). At the beginning of May 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO, 2025) declared that
the global pandemic caused by COVID-19 was considered well-established and ongo- ing and no longer classified as a public health emergency of international concern. As such, federal, state, and local officials have stopped enforcing pandemic safety measures, includ- ing the requirement of face masks and social or physical distancing. Several studies, however, have reported that consumers still value and might even have higher expectations for cleaning and safety protocols that have been implemented by hospitality operations in response to the
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Volume 87 • Number 7
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