Outsourcing hotel laundry can improve operations

Today’s hotel operators can appreciate the importance of managing a reliable laundry and linen program. Hotel guestrooms, along with food-and-beverage departments, simply can’t function without it. Travelers trust that hotels are providing them with clean bedding, bath towels and table linens 365 days a year; if that trust is broken, loyalty will disappear as well. Unfortunately, running a hotel laundry is far more complicated and costly today than in years past. Maintaining periodic automatic replenishment levels, protecting staff from chemicals spills, rising labor costs and shrinking allocations of physical space are just a few of the many challenges. The alternative is to outsource to a commercial laundry, preferably one that features considerable automation. When sheets, pillowcases, towels and table linens can be folded by machines, it reduces laundry operating costs significantly.

Here are just a few considerations impacting owners’ decisions to outsource their laundry processes:

• Labor represents 50 percent of a hotel’s laundry operating costs. In cities where the minimum wage is exceeding $15 per hour, it is cost-prohibitive to staff an on-site laundry.
• As new hotels are being built, owners and developers are allocating less discretionary space for nonrevenue-generating areas like laundry and linen storage. In some cases, onsite laundries are excluded from the planning altogether because it is deemed an unnecessary expense.
• Larger hotels, especially those in the full-service and luxury segments, are removing laundries during renovations and using the empty space to lease to a dry cleaner or they are finding that it can be used as meeting space, depending on its location in the building. If location is a problem, the vacant area is ideal for engineering offices or inventory storage.