The past few days have witnessed many people receiving diverse wishes for 2017; wishes for happiness, joy, peace, love, good health, prosperity, long life, God’s grace and progress. It is not too late to wish you the same.
- Hospitality has been dormant for a while and is using the New Year as a comeback to get the attention of the hospitality industry in Ghana, since this blog is intended for its benefit. January and February have been blocked to focus on hotel housekeeping in Ghana.
Generally hotel housekeeping is considered to be the heart of a hotel. It is only when something goes wrong that it is recognized – just like our hearts. Hotel housekeeping may also be considered to be the most thankless job at any hotel. Room attendants, now referred to by many as housekeepers perform the most physically demanding tasks, cleaning an average of 13 to 15 rooms a day and they are hardly seen by the typical guest to thank them. GH Hospitality’s dedication of the first two months of this year to hotel housekeeping and all involved in it is its way of honoring them. Ayee-koo!
Hotel rooms are getting more and more sophisticated: there are the different room types depending on the bed size (studio room, single, double, double-double, twin bed, hollywood twin, queen and king), different room structures(suite, interconnecting room, duplex, efficiency room and presidential suite among others), different bathroom designs/styles and a variety of surfaces all of which pose a challenge to good housekeeping in Ghana, not to mention sensor lighting systems, electronic key system and the list goes on! Meanwhile the traditional challenges in cleaning hotel rooms still persist in many hotels in Ghana today: gathering cleaning supplies in baskets or plastic bowls instead of service trolleys/carts and making beds hotel style on bed frames (commonly used in our homes); not structured for laying beds using the same technique in hotels.
Among hotel products, the highest expectation held by guests is in the guestroom; it must be so clean (look clean, feel clean, smell clean) that the guest must think s/he is the first to sleep in the room since it was built(everyday the guest enters the room during the duration of stay)!
Where should the first point of call be to get customized hotel furniture(particularly bed frames), equipment and tools (particularly room cart/trolley) to revolutionize hotel guestroom cleaning/servicing to enhance efficiency and instill pride in working in hotel housekeeping in Ghana? – the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MOTI)? Wood Workers Association of Ghana (WAG) ?or the Furniture industry? All must be working together with stakeholders of the hotel industry, particularly executive housekeepers. Perhaps this should serve as a clarion call to have a professional association for hotel housekeepers.