Introduction

Housekeeping is an important area in any accommodation property.

Most people see housekeeping as simply "cleaning guest rooms" but from an operational perspective there is a lot more to housekeeping than just that.

The role of housekeeping is to ensure the comfort and safety of guests whilst they are staying at a hospitality organisation. This is the guest's 'home away from home'. It is essential that that a guest is able to enjoy their room in the same manner and with the same ease as they would enjoy in their own house. The aim of housekeeping is to strive to enable guests to access items as easily as in their own home.

It is therefore important that housekeeping staff maintain a professional level of integrity, especially staff who clean rooms. Housekeeping staff must have high levels of integrity, honesty and discretion as a guest needs to feel that what takes place or what is left in their room must be safe and remain confidential.

Understandably an accommodation room is considerably smaller in size than the customer's normal residence and therefore items that they may need might not be in immediate access.

A hotel cannot provide all the necessary items a customer may need inside each and every room for a number of reasons:

• The room size is too small

• It would become cramped for space

• Not all customers need all items

• The capital outlay for a business would be considerable

• It reduces the chance of damage and theft.

Therefore it is vital that housekeeping are able to get a requested item to a room in the shortest possible time