New research into hotel guest attitudes conducted by White Knight Laundry Services has revealed most guests won’t return if sheets and towels aren’t up to scratch.
93% of guests feel that the quality of towels and bedding would affect their decision to return to a hotel. Of that group, 58% said it would affect their decision ‘a lot’ and 35% ‘to a certain extent’.
Dirty or poor quality sheets/towels are top deterrent
And 65% of respondents stated they would not return to a hotel if they experienced dirty or poor quality sheets and towels in their rooms. Hotel users cited this reason significantly above bad staff attitude (24%), small rooms (4%) and a poor restaurant (4%) as other reasons why they would not return.
The survey amongst 641 hotel users in the last 12 months also revealed that 96% of hotel guests notice the cleanliness of towels and sheets in hotel rooms and women, more so than men, are likely to find dirty and poor quality sheet and towels an issue.
A critical part of the guest experience
White Knight’s Managing Director, Robert Adams said, “The look and feel of your bed linen and towels is a critical part of creating the best guest experience. It’s important to get it absolutely right and our survey shows the impact it can have on your business if you don’t.”
Clean, fresh, crisp
In terms of how guests liked their bed linen, cleanliness was, not surprisingly, the top preference, followed by a fresh smell and being crisp. Cleanliness was the top preference for towels too, followed by softness and being ‘big enough’. Just under half (48%) of the respondents preferred white towels with only 1% preferring colour towels.
When asked about frequency of changing, 60% of respondents expected towels to be changed daily and 28% expected bedding to be changed daily. 50% of hotel guests are happy to have bedding changed every other day and 23% less often than that.
Business users are more likely to want their towels and bedding changed more frequently than social only guests.
The survey is part of White knight’s Hotel Insight Series.
For a summary of the report click here