Making beds and bedding more operationally friendly

By Marni Andrews, Contributing Editor

Marie Pier Germain, chief marketing officer for openings with Le Germain Hotels, has a lot of respect for room attendants at the company's four boutique properties in Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto and Calgary. Earlier in her career, as part of a training program, she learned to clean rooms. The experience was an eye opener.

"I always thought our room attendants were wonderful but after those couple of days I had a newfound respect for our housekeeping team," she says. "It is strenuous work. Changing the duvet covers, flat and fitted sheets, two pillow shams and two pillowcases every day for king-size beds is hard! I was breaking a sweat, never mind having to do it in a short period of time."

Le Germain's premium, all-white Egyptian cotton bedding certainly does not make the bed changing any easier. Along with other high end hotels, and many mid-market and lower-priced brands as well, the higher standard of bedding introduced by the Westin chain in 1999 with its landmark Heavenly Bed has upped the ante considerably for hoteliers. Typical bedding sets now are all white or predominantly white, cotton, and involve sheets, a number of pillows, duvets and perhaps even a bed scarf. It is a lot to launder, to put back on the bed, and to keep clean.

"The industry has come a long way in the last 10 years with better beds and a more environmentally responsible way of management," says Dr. Gabor Forgacs of the Ted Rogers School of Hospitality and Tourism Management in Toronto. "That now means double or triple sheeting, higher thread count material, more pillows, etc. The implications are better sleep for guests, a competitive advantage for early adopters and an additional revenue source from letting guests buy the mattresses and the bedding. It's also a lot of hard work for housekeepers, room attendants and laundry managers with higher expectations and more delicate items to handle."

The trend has gone from the traditional multi-coloured bedspread and blanket to the duvet insert with either a duvet or top cover in white. Many hotels are now triple sheeting their beds. This has increased operational costs in turning the room both at the room attendant and laundry level, agrees Neil Fowler, hospitality textile consultant, Standard Textile Co., Inc., which offers a complete range of hospitality bedding products including top covers that are more operationally efficient than duvet covers but heavier weight than a sheet.

Standard Textiles’ Red Bed

Fowler says that Standard's new Integrated Top Cover brings some colour back to the top of the bed that can be coordinated with a range of decorative throw pillows to coordinate with room schemes. The Studio Collection line offers pillows, bedskirts, bed scarves and top covers in a range of solid colours.

Agnes Enns, national account manager, lodging for Unisource Canada, Inc., which stock linens manufactured by Standard Textile in five distribution centres across the country, says that customers love to be able to place a linen order with the option to receive it the next day. The Room Ready for You Laundered with Tide products are ready to be used without prior washing, an advantage that Enns says can save the hospitality industry millions of dollars a year.

At Le Germain, where the sheets and duvet covers are washed and pressed daily and even the pH level is heavily controlled to ensure optimum comfort from bedding for guests, management partnered with Quebec designer Marie Saint Pierre for the Montreal property, where some customers had complained the sheets were too hot. Saint Pierre designed a bedding collection of Egyptian cotton that is "as light and transparent as sheer curtains," according to Pier Germain.

"Hotel guests are definitely more discriminating," says John Lungul, president of sales for FR Systems International, which manufactures and distributes StaminaFibre fill and products. "They are spending millions of dollars on their homes and they want to enjoy the same standard of living in a hotel. We are noticing a heightened emphasis on the bed, and properties are trying to make the bed the focal point of the room."

Lungul notes that bedding durability is very important, especially for pillows.

"It seems like everyone has an issue with pillows. We get routine calls from hotel owners and managers looking for pillows with improved life cycle. They want pillows that do not flatten and clump," he says.

Customers now have the opportunity to enjoy luxury hotel bedding at home, thus the expectations when staying at a hotel are higher, says Florencia Pergament, manager, strategic planning, Northern Feather Canada, which offers down and down alternative sleep products. She agrees with Lungul that pillows, and duvets, have become a critical part of a hotel room.

Pergament suggests that properties look at the cost of the replenishment cycle when pricing bedding products rather than just the lowest price. For example, Northern Feather's new NF Zenfibre^TM collection offers a longer lifespan based on its blend of superior fibres, says Pergament.

Jost Lehner, owner of JostCo Hospitality HP, representing South Carolina-based textile manufacturer Riegel, says that his TC200 and TC250 super soft bed linen lines are creating the most interest currently. The products are new to the Canadian market and offer conveniences such as colour-coded labels on the bed linen for easy identification, non-iron crease-resistant finishes and tucked selvedge for strength.

Riegel’s blue sheets.

Londen Inc./Londen Hospitality offers sleep solutions ranging from mattress pads and covers to deal with bed bugs and dust mites to bedsheets, duvet covers and shams. Henrik Londen says that the company's mainstay for almost 30 years has been their decorative "top of the bed" that they manufacture on premise as well as custom-made drapery.

Andi Monopoli of Londen says that hotels are still using a lot of white on top of the bed but they're seeing more and more colour coming back through accessories such as bed throws, cumberbunds, throw pillows and shams. Antimicrobial bed "undergarments" are popular as well.

Faheem Adam is CEO, Marina Textiles Inc., one of the largest Canadian importers of textile products. The company introduced their own brand "Eurocale," which Adam says is comparable with any North American hospitality and healthcare brand but at lower prices.

Quality beds can drive better guest scores

Steve Tipton, vice-president, Simmons Hospitality Bedding, says that hoteliers are looking for bedding products that will drive better guest scores.

"This is done with products that ‘feel' better than the old innerspring mattress of the ‘90s. Owners want value and a bedding product that will increase satisfaction scores. This in many cases is not the cheapest mattress," he explains.

"Sustainability is the biggest trend. With the Simmons EverNU Beautyrest paired with the Simmons EnduroTECH foundation, owners can reduce their total ownership costs by more than 50 per cent and keep the products out of landfills."

"Long gone are the days of the eight-inch mattress," agrees Peter Dunn, general manager of the one-year-old Le Westin Montreal with 454 rooms and suites, which feature 13-inch pillowtop mattresses by Simmons. Both the Washington Capitals and the Pittsburgh Penguins stayed at the hotel during the recent hockey playoffs. Dunn lived in the hotel himself from December 2009 until early June of this year and he gave the beds high marks.

"Given the amount of travel nowadays, hotel bedding is extremely important. We have all white bedding. And from a cleanliness perspective, it's great for guests to come in and see how clean it is. It's a very sharp look," he says of the Westin Montreal's 230-thread count, 100 per cent Egyptian cotton bedding. "I think we'll just keep going to more pillowtop."

According to Andrea Torrance, vice president, rooms, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, the chain of 60-plus hotels partnered with Sealy to develop two mattresses under private labels: the Posturepedic Luxury Plush Pillow Top and the Stearns & Foster Plush Pillow Top, the latter for Fairmont Gold rooms and suites. She calls the Stearns & Foster "the best in the world."

"Often guests want to find out where they can purchase one of the beds. They also tell us they wish they could lengthen their stay just to enjoy another night's sleep," says Torrance.

Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Gold Room in Montreal

Mario Barbieri, sales manager, Canada, for Sealy Global Hospitality, says that Sealy, founded in 1881, is the oldest bedding company and is best known for their Posturepedic brand developed with orthopedic surgeons. They fabricate their own coil, the Posturetech, which offers deep support as well as correct spinal alignment, according to Barbieri. Sealy is the bedding supplier for the Fairmont, Four Seasons and Shangri-La chains, among others.

In the 21st century, bedding is going green, he says. Bigger, higher beds with a Pillowtop, Eurotop and Euro Pillowtop construction continue to be popular, while beds with natural cores such as Latex rubber from the Hivea tree are durable, resilient and exotic. Sealy is developing new memory foam criteria, which Barbieri predicts will gain in popularity over the next few years.

For hospitality clients, Sealy offers a specialty Latex bed that can be adapted to each guest's personal preferences, which can be kept in a hotel registry for regular visitors. A removable top on the bed converts it from firm to plush comfort.

"Guests are ready to invest in comfort and pampering. Hotels that offer these features can build a greater loyalty and separate themselves from the competition," explains Barbieri.

Restwell Sleep doesn't spend heavily on advertising, according to spokesman Mike Russell, and this allows them to offer bedding at huge savings to chains such as Hilton as well as family-run B&B's and smaller motels. They developed a customized, completely recyclable sleep system to the specifications of developer Remai Zwack Ventures.

Many hotels are now offering bedding menus to guests which often incorporate pressure-relieving mattresses in luxury suites, says Janet Smith, senior marketing production manager, Tempur-Canada, which offers the Tempur-Pedic Swedish Mattresses and Pillows developed from NASA research to provide pressure relief.

In prior years, lodging consumers were concerned about the bottom line, however there has been a swing toward experiential marketing and away from purchasing the "least expensive mattress on the market," she says.

"Besides offering an outstanding commercial use warranty, our mattresses feature a removable cover that can be laundered to increase the longevity of the investment," says Smith.