Hotel Housekeeping: Brilliant Cleaning Tips and Tricks from Hotel Housekeepers 2023

First impressions count: This makes hotel housekeeping one of the most important aspects of the daily operation of a hotel. The moments after a guest opens their room door are crucial.

Thus, any miscalculation will surely be included in your review, or worse, cause someone who otherwise would not have rated to leave a negative review. So how can you avoid costly slip-ups and become known for excellent cleaning? Still, this blog covers everything from hostel room cleaning checklists to tips and software to help your team when you’re ready to brush up on all the cleaning effects.

Hotel Housekeeping 101: Why is the cleanliness of hostel rooms so important?

Hostel room cleanliness is a black-and-white area. Either you’re doing it right (and enjoying the contented silence of your guests), or you’re doing it wrong (and addressing the complaints). And if you’re wrong, the cost of the form is high compared to the impact of a negative review and the loss of trust from a customer who may never return. 

Even fairly neutral ratings can send shivers down the chin of implied guests if the stated cleanliness status is below average. Since you only get a chance to get it right, housekeeping is a daily activity that can positively impact the guest experience and highlight your team’s processes and attention to detail.

In search of seamless processes and appropriate hostel room design guidelines, hoteliers can draw on checklists, trained housekeeping managers, and software to achieve excellence alongside excellence.  

What should you include hotel housekeeping policy?

A hostel’s housekeeping policy forms the basis for all cleanliness-related facilities. It typically includes the vision, which provides an opportunity to align with the hotel’s brand and goals, specific house standards, and similar products. Behavior guidelines, including guest handling and notification of faulty devices.

Procedures for common areas and back of the house by frequency and checklists by room type for cleaning during a guest’s stay, turndown service, and rotation between guests.

In-depth program training covers the more unusual scenarios and provides general guidance to align housekeeping team behavior with hotel values. When a hotel housekeeping service is hired, the housekeeping policy can be part of the agreement between the hostel and the hospitality housekeeping service, setting clear standard operating procedures. 

Hotel Room Cleaning Checklist

Whether you’re writing a checklist for your home or your suites, the general approach will likely be the same as above; with the ramifications below previously removed, they will replenish. That means you start cleaning at the top and stop at the bottom. The two separate areas often segment cleaning procedures and checklists.

Bedroom cleaning checklist  

• Open the windows 
• Remove linens, rubbish, or debris
• Dust surfaces, starting at the highest points( so any dust swept up then can get gutted off the bottom latterly) 
• Arrange & create orders, such as hangers in the closet, menus on desks, and ironing boards returned to their storage. 
• Wipe and sanitize surfaces, including doorknobs and handles  
• Make the bed  
• Restock amenities  
• Check that appliances are working, including lightbulbs  
• Finish with hand touches  
• Vacuum or mop the bottoms  
• Final look( and close that window)

 Bathroom cleaning checklist  

• Remove towels, mats, rubbish, or debris. 
•  Arrange & create orders, similar to hair dryers, clean and neatly packed away. Clean & sanitize shells, including kerchief rails, press handles, doors, showers, tubs, sinks, and drains. 
•  Clean & sanitize restroom and bidets. 
• Restock amenities, including towels, toilet paper, and toiletries  
• Check that appliances are working, including hot water. 
• Finish with hand touches  
• Mop the bottoms  
• Final look 

12 Tips to Perfectly Clean Your Hotel Room

Now that you’ve read the “hand touches” twice, it’s time to do yours. It can be as simple as a hotel-branded chocolate on the bedside table or as detailed as a personalized welcome note on the glass.

1. Get the benefit of clarity. The differences between cleaning an in-house guest’s room and a full cleaning should be clear and impact satisfied guests, and the less time it takes to clean a room compared to cleaning a room.
2. Have clear checklists ready for special room types. This may include instructions on cleaning or maintaining specific equipment, such as hot tubs or exercise equipment.
3. Forecast of room cleaning times and staffing depending on workload. That starts with knowing how long it takes to develop an entire room and how many are listed for the day.
4. No one wants to find an expired chamomile tea bag with their Nespresso. 
5. Use cleaning products and products that do not have an unusual or overpowering odor.
6. Schedule regular checks on all equipment, replace contaminants in air conditioners, or clean ducts. These can be much more time-consuming or expensive but are worth it when compared to guests who complain about issues with devices that have similar functionality, noise, or bad smells that can’t be masked.
7. Standardize the organization of your cleaning carts and make sure they move easily in hallways, apartments, and carpets.
8. Schedule regular deep cleaning of windows, carpets, guest quarters, common areas, and the back of the home.
9. Update cleaning checklists as new services are added.
10. Reward your cleaning team with recognition and allow them to discuss new or emerging topics.
11.  Learning from a team member that towel rails are coming loose is far better than a guest.
12. Go back in the background with your team and witness the development of routines in your lodge.

Hotel Housekeeping: How to streamline your processes

These days, great tips for cleaning hostel rooms no longer come in the form of graphics but as technical recommendations. Unexpected sources like review software can allow a hostel to identify an elevator odor issue simply by organizing a word cloud based on the most mentioned words in reviews. Aside from related issues, it seems easy to create benefits and excellence through’s streamlined processes until many other factors impact the hostel’s daily operations and a guest requests a late check-out.

Sneak peek:

As your team performs the daily dance of aligning standard practices with growing customer demands, it makes sense to invest in time-saving technology. Not only can this reduce costs when the need for cleaning staff is directly foreseeable, but it can also improve communication between teams and ensure visibility of the important number.