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Hotels Don’t Clean In-Room Glassware

by Susan Gunelius on November 9th, 2007

The Fox affiliate in Atlanta, Georgia conducted a test of hotel room cleanliness by placing hidden cameras in five hotel chains with big brand names including Holiday Inn, Embassy Suites, Sheraton and The Ritz Carlton.  Regardless of the hotel’s price, one thing stayed the same - those glasses in the room’s bar or by the ice bucket are not clean.

And sometimes, the sheets on the bed are dirty, too.

Here’s what Consumerist had to say about the disgusting trend:

At every single hotel, regardless of price, the glasses were simply rinsed out and left for the next guest. Some hotels used dirty bath towels to wipe the glasses. One hotel employee rinsed the glasses after cleaning the toilet—using the same gloves. Another one sprayed the glasses with blue cleaning fluid that was marked “Do not drink.”

The people at the Fox affiliate turned the films over to the local health department who is now investigating what’s being called a serious health violation.  You can follow the links to watch Fox’s two-part segment called Dirty Hotel Secrets and Dirty Hotel Secrets Pt. 2.

Where to begin on this one?  First, the dirty sheets and blankets discovery is definitely something I’ve heard about before, and it’s truly disgusting.  I remember watching a news report years ago where the investigator used a black light on the sheets and the results were repulsive.  Then he used a Q-tip and petri dish to take “samples” from the sheets, and you can imagine the various bodily fluids that were found.  Needless to say, I have loathed staying in hotels ever since.  Now, it turns out the glasses are dirty, too, and not just dirty, but possibly cleaned with poisonous chemicals.

The Fox reporters noted in their investigation report that the hotels they investigated were chosen at random and the results were not isolated to just one or two hotels but instead consistent across the board.  All five hotels investigated failed to properly clean the glasses in the room between guests. 

What kind of brand image can a hotel aspire to portray if their housekeeping staff either chooses not to do a thorough job or isn’t given the opportunity to do a thorough job (a spokesperson for Embassy Suites told the Fox reporters that housekeepers only have a certain amount of time to clean each room, which is why they don’t clean thoroughly)?  Looks like a great ad campaign for a hotel chain that actually cleans the rooms would really hype that fact as a differentiator.  I can see the headline now, “Choose XYZ Hotel. Rooms so clean your mother would stay here.”

What do you think about Fox’s findings?  Is it time for hotels to live up to and surpass their brand messages by offering not just a bed, but a clean bed? 

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POSTED IN: Brand Image