Resuinsa highlights the experience of professionals working with textiles every day and underlines the importance of training to ensure they are used to best effect
How many times is a sheet handled over the course of its shelf life at a hotel? And a towel? Housekeeping teams could probably give a fairly accurate answer. They work with them every day and know exactly what happens to textiles after repeated use, washes and seasons. This is why, to mark International Housekeeping Week, held from 13 to 19 September, Resuinsa is shining a spotlight on a less visible aspect of hotel housekeeping: the knowledge these professionals have about textiles.
Sheets and towels need to provide comfort for guests, but hotel textiles are expected to do much more. They need to withstand continuous industrial laundering, maintain their performance and make the day-to-day work carried out in every room easier. This is where quality ultimately proves its worth. And where durability becomes particularly important. Extending the shelf life of textiles reduces replacement needs and enables hotels to get more out of every item, with the resulting economic and environmental benefits for the establishment.
Housekeeping teams are the first to see this in practice. Their day-to-day experience gives them an understanding of textiles that goes far beyond appearance, from knowing when the first signs of wear begin to show to how proper care can help extend their shelf life. They also know first-hand the relationship between quality and durability: the better an item performs under intensive use, the less often it needs replacing and the more hotels can get out of it.
Then there are the small details. A textile item that takes longer to put in place or a solution that is difficult to maintain may seem like minor issues until they are repeated time and again. In this sense, the practical perspective of housekeeping teams provides valuable insight into quality, efficiency, durability and sustainability at hotels.
The importance of training
This close relationship with textiles also explains why Resuinsa has long been committed to training housekeepers and hotel housekeeping professionals. Understanding an item’s composition, how it should be treated, which practices help preserve its properties and the importance of sustainability all help hotels get better performance from their textiles. Moreover, these training sessions provide an opportunity for questions, experiences and specific situations from the hotels themselves to be shared. This exchange gives Resuinsa first-hand insight into how textiles are performing and the needs arising from hotels’ day-to-day operations.
In this sense, International Housekeeping Week is an opportunity to recognise the work of executive housekeepers, assistant housekeepers, linen room attendants, supervisors and all the other professionals in the department. It is also an ideal opportunity to listen to them. They are the people who work with textiles every day, care for them and know better than anyone how they perform once they are put to work in a hotel.
