Have you ever wondered if your hotel room was truly clean? There have been countless experiments conducted by skeptical guests to detect microorganisms in their hotel rooms, with most of them returning the same results: yikes! Pillows, comforters, sofas, carpets, utensils and even remote controls are widely known to be the dirtiest spots in every hotel room. Hotel cleanliness is an instrumental pillar of the hospitality industry, with as much as 92% of travellers prioritizing the cleanliness aspect when selecting accommodations, based on a 2020 study by Tripadvisor. Given that COVID-19 has rampaged the global hospitality industry, local governments have enforced a barrage of restrictions on the sector to curb the spread of the virus. The chances of you booking a room that was once used as a quarantine facility are incredibly high, as more than half of the 67000 hotels rooms in Singapore were used in the battle against COVID-19.
Singapore’s hospitality industry is striving to brace the COVID-19 pandemic by enforcing more safety precautions against harmful microorganisms such as the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Fortunately, Singapore is in preparation to enter Phase 3 of its COVID-19 response plan, which involves increasing the size of group gatherings and mass events. This includes the government’s plan to issue $100 worth of SingapoDiscovers vouchers to every Singaporean to spur the revival of local tourism businesses. Unsurprisingly, these vouchers are only valid for hotels that have received the ”SG Clean” stamp from the Singapore Tourism Board through its various audit and certification phases. This exposes the urgent need to revamp accommodation practices through the utilization of smart cleaning solutions – a necessity which is expected to be at the forefront of hospitality revival in Singapore. Under these circumstances, UV-C light has become one of the rising technologies in the hospitality industry which are commonly used in healthcare to disinfect rooms, surfaces, liquid and air more effectively. While existing sterilization technology ranges from electrostatic sprayers to UV light robots, there has still been no tangible means for us to be 100% confident of our safety. Given the opacity of true cleanliness, fear and apprehension continue to be the lingering barrier to the successful revival of our hospitality industry.
