Articles
Sweet dreams
4/3/2001
The weary traveler can easily embrace the sweetness of sleep amid the luxurious bedding being offered at certain hotels and resorts
By Judy Colbert
Chocolate mints on the pillow, aromatherapy bath salts by the tub, and milk and cookies on the night stand may impart your message for sweet dreams, but it's the mattress and pillows that help insure your guests' good night's sleep.
Pete Carroll, general manager of the Don Cesar, St. Petersburg Beach, FL, says there's a ”much stronger emphasis today on the quality of bedding and the sleep experience especially in full service properties." Previously, guest rooms were loaded with amenities, and now that's shifted to a comfortable night's sleep. "We've invested a great deal of money with new Sealy Posturpedic pillow top beds. They're topped with goose down pillows (non-allergenic pillows are available in each room). The suites also have a pillow top cover on top of the mattress. The response has been fabulous. We keep the manufacturer's representative's name on file for those guests who want to purchase this bedding."
Carroll figures the duvet cover that's changed before every new guest arrival, and triple sheeting (the top sheet has the Don Cesar logo on it) has added about six to eight minutes to the cleaning time of each room.
When the Don Cesar was renovating, they tested a number of mattresses and chose the Sealy as the most comfortable and durable. As a resort, he has a lot of families visiting, so he see occupancies with three and four people to a room. His 277 rooms are split into 134 king and 276 double doubles. "Downtown or convention hotels may still hold on to twin beds," but the family-oriented properties have gone with at least double doubles or even double queens.
Carroll says the biggest mistakes hotels can make in buying bedding is ordering by price rather than by comfort and not having an effective mattress rotation program. The Don Cesar rotates the mattresses on a quarterly basis, avoiding dipping and other wear points on the mattresses that shorten their life span. Carroll figures his mattresses should last five years.
After Hurricane Georges destroyed everything at the Dunes Hotel in Pensacola Beach, FL, general manager Beverly McKay remembered the beds at a local hotel that was being sold at auction. Although most of the hard goods were in pretty rough shape and needed replacing, the mattresses were still in good condition. She had the nearby Palm Mattress Company analyze the construction so it could be duplicated. "There were two things that made this mattress, one was the gauge of the inner spring, a 13, and topper corner guards and quilting on the platform. "
As she has limited storage and parking space, Palm Mattress assisted by delivering the mattresses one container at a time, providing the next container when they were almost through emptying the first.
McKay would normally replace all the bedding at one time because all of her rooms face the Gulf of Mexico so they receive fairly uniform use. At other properties, where one side of the building may face a view and the other side a parking lot, the view rooms would normally have more wear and the mattresses would need to be replaced more frequently. Some hotels rotate mattresses out on a floor-by-floor basis, thus spreading the purchase cost rather than having a huge capital outlay every four or five years or so.
McKay has her housekeeping staff rotate the mattresses every month in each of the 78 rooms. She advises getting month tags, with January, April, July, October on one corner, February, May, August, November on another corner, through the year. "It's labor intensive, but not if you consider the life of the mattress."
According to Andrea Marci, Cendant's director of design services, the look is important, and it's going to what she calls the "Spa feel" with duvet cover, bed skirt, and pillow shams over the standard throw style bedspread. It provides a more luxurious, comfortable feel with a residential look.
Marriott Hotels and Resorts have been using Jamison Bedding for three decades (Jamison also provides bedding for the Opryland Hotel, Bass Hotels and Resorts, Choice Hotel Properties, and many Hilton properties). They've recently designed the new Marriott Bed, which was the result of a yearlong extensive customer research project, including testing numerous inner spring mattresses, featherbeds, and mattresses with quilted tops. Marriott and Jamison selected a seven-inch mattress with a firm under-foundation and a soft plush top.
"We are, after all, a lodging company, so it's important to continually evaluate how to help our guests feel well-rested while traveling," said Dan Banchiu, senior vice president of rooms operations for Marriott International. "We believe that today's travelers will find that the new Marriott Bed offers the best night's sleep away from home. All of the down items used on the new Marriott Bed, including comforter, blanket, and pillow have undergone the Pacific Coast Feather Company's patented Hypercleaning process to ensure that the bedding is hypoallergenic. Few people are truly allergic to down; rather, reactions typically occur as a result of the dust and other allergens left in most feather products."
The new beds are expected to be in place in 75 percent of the brands' full-service hotel rooms by the beginning of 2003. As the old beds are replaced in more than 200 Marriott hotels in the United States, the 100,000 mattresses being replaced will go to the Gifts in Kind International, a nonprofit clearinghouse that is distributing the mattresses to needy families and nonprofit organizations.
Ruffling feathers is a specialty at the Pan Pacific hotel in San Francisco where they offer guests an option of three different sizes and firmness of pillows from small to large and soft to hard. Each of the hotel's feather pillows get cleaned and the feathers recycled about 3 times a year to ensure guests will have sanitary pillows. In an onsite machine, the feathers are released from an existing pillow, are put into the feather fluffing/sanitizing machine, and get fluffed around and sanitized for about 10 minutes. Feather stems and dust are extracted before returning to a new pillow casing.
"After noticing many of our guests arriving with their own pillows, our associates polled repeat customers to solicit recommendations on how The Pan Pacific could better accommodate their pillow preferences," says general manager Volker Ulrich. "We discovered that many frequent travelers carry their own pillows to ensure sleeping comfort while on the road. Not only do our frequent guests now eagerly anticipate this special amenity but new guests expect this service as well…noting that they choose our hotel based on these special 'creature comforts.'"
The Benjamin Hotel in New York City offers a selection of eleven specialty pillows from Buckwheat to water filled and from gel-filled to magnetic therapy, and have sold approximately 400 of their special Benjamin Bed sets, made by Serta.
Bedding for children has drawn more interest lately, with the Bumpa Bed system, by Baby Jogger Co., having built-in bumper pads made of firm, breathable foam, with no loose ties or dangerous gaps. The bed fits inside the crib and comes with two quilted sheets that firmly attach to the bottom with Velcro. L.A. Baby makes a mini cot that's specifically designed for children from two to six years old. The bed features a 12-in., low to the floor design for ease of use and safety, as well as a 27- × 52-in. mattress. The 4-in. thick, California-approved "FR" mattress is covered with a protective wet-proof vinyl material and accepts standard crib and toddler-bed bedding.
Guests aren't the only ones who have adopted the hotel bedding system. According to Barbara Wiener, vice president, US Franchise Systems, all the corporate officers have the identical Springwall chiropractic-approved beds that are in each of the more than 250 Microtel Inns & Suites.
TIPS:
Look for a strong edge support to prevent edge breakdown
Look for an insulator pad to prevent upholstery materials from sinking into the coils
Look for pillow-top on the top and bottom of the mattress to allow for complete mattress rotation.
Look for a warranty, whether it's pro-rated or non pro-rated.
Check for spring gauge, which runs from 12 ¾ to 15, with the smaller the number the stronger the spring.
Check the density of the foam, from 1 lb per square foot and up.
Request commercial grade fabrics.
Request a rigid bed base system that blocks the space between the bed and the floor to eliminate the need to vacuum under the bed and prevent guests from leaving items under it.