The industry has welcomed the bounce-back of travel following a prolonged period of pandemic-induced restrictions that hampered the tourism and hospitality sectors.
According to the World Tourism Organization, year on year global international tourist arrivals increased by 130% in January as more people returned to journeying abroad for business and holidays.
Meanwhile, the tourism sector is set to contribute $8.6 trillion to the global economy this year, just 6.4% short of pre-pandemic levels.
For hoteliers, the time has come to win customers back, and those that cater best to the needs of the post-pandemic traveler are primed to do so.
Even though restrictions on travel have in large parts returned to some degree of normality, travelers are likely to retain a heightened awareness of the cleanliness and safety of the environments they are travelling in and to.
This includes the air surrounding them. At hotels in particular, where lots of people move in and out on a daily basis, clean air can and should play a key role in helping to improve the guest experience. Here, we will explore how smarter air conditioning units can achieve this important end.
The importance of indoor air quality (IAQ)
We already know that cleanliness is a key factor in the customer experience. Hoteliers are expected to provide clean bedding, floors, fixtures and bathrooms alongside professional housekeeping staff. However, we now also need to add clean air into the equation.
One of the key learnings from the pandemic is that COVID-19, as with many viruses, is airborne and thrives in poorly ventilated indoor spaces. Travelers know this and are still wary about catching COVID for health and practical reasons that could hamper their holiday or business arrangements.
The pandemic has intensified the conversation around indoor air quality. It has always been an important health issue that the likes of the World Health Organization and EPA have been active in publicizing.
And they do so for good reason. Although progress continues to be made, millions of people suffer health problems unnecessarily every year due to breathing in poor quality air indoors.
How can hoteliers keep their guests safe?
Keeping air fresh and clean is one of the most effective ways to create safe indoor environments for hotel guests. On top of the regular cleaning regimes and practices, many of which will have been intensified during the pandemic, hoteliers should be seeking ways to keep rooms well-ventilated with clean air.
Critically, this does not need to involve huge and costly installations. Indeed, there are alternatives to relying solely on unsightly and expensive rooftop HVAC systems tasked with pushing fresh air throughout the entire property.
Instead, hotel purchasing managers should consider smaller air conditioning units with built-in air filtration systems. Luckily, there are several solutions out there.
Pioneering manufacturers have integrated new fresh air capabilities into closet-installed and smaller packaged HVAC units – this means that hotels of any size, either as part of the initial build or retrofitted into an existing building, can reap the benefits of superior IAQ.
Take the Friedrich VRP® studio. The latest addition to the award-winning VRP® line, VRP studio is designed to fit into smaller hotel rooms. With a 23x23 inch footprint, it is able to provide effective heating, cooling and dehumidification while enabling customized comfort with intelligent IAQ features – all designed to help buildings meet ASHRAE 62.1 requirements for indoor air.
Alternatively, hotel owners and managers could opt for the FreshAire ® PTAC system. Operating quietly with reduced temperature swings, guests’ comfort is maintained while the unit introduces clean air into the room via a MERV 8 filter.
All VRP units can be fitted with optional MERV 13 filters. These are important features, with the likes of the CDC, EPA and ASHRAE recommending the use of a MERV 13 (or higher) filter to help guard against the spread of infectious airborne particles, including COVID-19. MERV 13 filters have been proven to be at least 85% effective in dealing with particles as small as one micron, while COVID-19 transmitted on particles and nuclei between one and six microns in size.
Looking beyond IAQ
As well as offering guests all-important IAQ reassurance, hoteliers can further make several practical gains.
By providing fresh, clean air directly into bedrooms, VRP studio and FreshAire PTAC enable hotels to considerably downsize rooftop HVAC units, which would only be required to serve communal areas of the property. Furthermore, should one unit be taken out of operation for maintenance, a hotel only loses the room it is stationed in as opposed to suffering a potentially much wider operational impact.
In today’s economic climate with volatile energy prices, the energy efficiency gains offered by the VRP studio and FreshAire PTAC ranges represent another means for hoteliers to reduce their overheads. Guests are becoming increasingly environmentally conscious – by providing clean air in a more sustainable way, two important guest experience boxes are being ticked.
Meanwhile, variable refrigerant packaged units with fresh air capabilities are further boosting customer satisfaction through temperature control and quiet performance features.
These are the smart hospitality HVAC solutions of the future. Contact Friedrich AC today to discover more.