Indoor air quality in the hospitality industry

Hospitality: indoor air quality

Why is polluted air a problem in the hospitality industry?

- Generates a bad experience for customers

- Increases health risks and disease frequency

How can we take action to improve indoor air quality?

- Air rooms often at the end of the shift

- Properly maintaining ventilation systems

- Using an air purifier

The benefits of an air purifier in the hospitality industry

Vitesy: a company that takes care of your indoor air quality

- Natede Smart and Eteria

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Hospitality: indoor air quality

The hospitality industry is a category that encompasses a wide range of facilities such as hotels, restaurants, bars, pubs, and cafes, where the main services offered are lodging, catering, food and wine experiences, and mind-body wellness.

In an environment such as hospitality where customer comfort comes first, among the various key factors in ensuring excellent service there is one topic that is rarely addressed in the correct manner: indoor air quality.

Indoor air pollution is perhaps one of the factors that contributes most to the well-being of a hospitality environment because if we think about it carefully, it is the one element that can always be present during the customers' stay in a facility.

Unfortunately, most business owners in this field are unaware of a really relevant fact.

According to WHO (World Health Organization) data, indoor air can be up to 5 times more polluted than outdoor air.

And in overcrowded environments such as those in the hospitality industry, it can be up to 10 times more due to various pollutants that are produced from countless sources, which we will go over in a moment.

Why is polluted air a problem in the hospitality industry?

Indoor air pollution in the hospitality industry is a problem for two different reasons.

1. Generates a bad experience for customers

You know that strange feeling of walking into a room and feeling that the air is heavy, stale, or that there are unpleasant smells?

These are the first clues that there is polluted air inside that space.

Unfortunately, however, in an environment such as a hotel room, people are often forced to stay in certain spaces in order to enjoy the services provided.

Here’s a good example: imagine you’re a hotel guest, perhaps after a long day of work. You would just like to relax and enjoy your room, your dinner or spend time in a particular area of the facility.

Now imagine that the moment you decide to take this time for yourself, a negative factor such as a strong odor, stale or heavy air comes into play: your reaction can only be negative and generate frustration.

Having this type of problem can not only be unhealthy, but it also generates a less than positive experience for customers who have to live with odors and heavy air.

This inevitably results in a negative review of the service both online and to their acquaintances, as well as an unlikely return to that facility.

All this for a problem that is solvable through proper precautions and simple solutions that we are going to analyze together.

2. Increases health risks and disease frequency

Most people spend 90% of their time indoors. This is a really important figure and one that makes us realize how much in reality, although we often think that polluted air is only outside, it is much more common to breathe different pollutants in an indoor environment.

So if the air in an indoor environment is polluted, this translates into a greater health risk for all the people who populate a hospitality facility: both for the customers who stay and for the staff who work there.

This results in two issues:

• The customer is subjected to an unsafe and unhealthy environment.
• The number of workers who contract respiratory illnesses or infection increases, thus forcing owners to grant more sick days.

A research conducted by the CBI stated that in the United Kingdom air pollution is responsible for 3 million days a year of sick leave. If this problem could be solved, over 10 years this would result in approximately £1.7 billion in savings for the country.

How can we take action to improve indoor air quality?

Since customer experience is a key aspect for a company in the Hospitality field, here are some tips for ensuring healthy and safe air quality.

Air rooms often at the end of the shift

A move that is as simple as it is effective. Opening windows in places that you know will be crowded is the most effective way to ensure recirculation of air between outside and inside, so as to avoid the stagnation of odors and other unpleasant pollutants, such as Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) or cooking fumes.

However, there must be extra care for the facilities that are based in a busy area, such as the center of a city or near roads with high vehicle flow.

In this case, given the major problem of smog, it is best to avoid opening the windows during peak hours. 

Properly maintaining ventilation systems

Counterintuitive as it may be, ventilation systems can also be a source of indoor air pollution.

There is no doubt that they are a great help in recirculating air in spaces where windows cannot be opened. Unfortunately, these systems need regular maintenance to be cleaned and to replace the filters that trap dust and particulate matter.

The environment within these systems, if not routinely maintained and treated, can be the primary source of the air pollution one breathes in an enclosed space. In fact, when they become particularly dirty and saturated, filters can become a breeding ground for the accumulation and spread of viruses and bacteria.

Thus causing increased transmissibility of respiratory diseases and increased susceptibility to lung infections.

Using an air purifier

Currently one of the most effective and convenient solutions, especially in the hospitality industry.

Air purifiers are technological products that allow people to eliminate pollutants within their enclosed spaces thanks to the effectiveness of their advanced filtering systems.

There are several solutions on the market and each has its own characteristics. They differ in:

• Price
• Filter
• Dimensions
• Purifying capacity
• Effectiveness on various categories of pollutants

The most popular and effective alternatives on the market are HEPA purifiers and PCO purifiers. 

These two technologies are often mistakenly compared even though they involve extremely different air purification techniques. 

In fact, HEPA filters merely block pollutants through filters composed of very tight mesh; while PCO (photocatalytic oxidation) technology acts in a totally different way.

Photocatalytic oxidation doesn’t block, but rather eliminates pollutants through the power of the nanomaterials in the filter. This is possible thanks to a natural chemical reaction, 100% safe for humans, where the pollutants captured by the filter system are broken down into harmless substances and dissolved into the environment, thus returning renewed and healthy air to the room.