If you are a hotel owner, pest control in hotel industry is important for your business. Your customers expect a pleasant and tidy environment in their hotel room, lobby, bathroom, restaurant, gym, bar and every other facility that you offer.
On the other hand, being part of the hotel business you are responsible for the safety of your employees, customers and even contractors. This means if you are plan to organize pest control activity, you have to ensure the safety of all the people on your premises. Whether you are hiring a reputable pest control company or your staff will do it, you need to consider the safety risks.
There is a range of regulations and laws, that you being a hotel owner need to comply with including food safety laws, environment laws, health safety laws, etc. Similarly, certain types of pests fall under wildlife protection law, you must be aware of them as well.
Pest control is an expensive job, and by the below-given steps, you can minimize your expenditure on pest control.
• A Pest management policy
One of the primary steps in the hotel industry is important to ingrain pest control in your day-to-day practices. You should adopt an integrated pest management policy for your hotel. Under the policy, by using toxic chemicals minimally and controlling the pests effectively. This integrated approach proposes a safe method of pest control. The IPM programme has 4 major components including:
1. Set a pest control threshold for your business means at what level you will require to activate the cleaning action. It should be zero for food-related areas.
2. Give proper training to your staff as well as a monitoring mechanism to identify and monitor pests.
3. Adopt practices and procedures that prevent pests.
4. Have well-defined pest control methods for your hotel that staff is aware of and trained.
• Hotel monitoring for identifying signs of pests
To recognize signs that if there are pests, your staff will need training and add pest monitoring part of your daily to-do list. If you don’t know how does termites look, you can find discarded wings near windowsills and doors or termite droppings or mud tubes on walls, or a thin veneer or paint-like appearance to take a quick pest control action. Add following things as part of daily staff routine.
1. Make sure room cleaners are checking for pests like fleas or bed bugs. Often guests staying in rooms bring that, therefore detect the pests on time for control.
2. Make sure your maintenance staff is checking out the potential entry points for pest activity.
3. Make sure your kitchen staff is checking out pests everywhere in the kitchen, food serving area, where waste bins are placed and even in storerooms.
• Use professional pest control services
If you possess sufficient resources, opting for commercial pest control services is advisable. These services not only contribute to preserving your business integrity but also offer the following benefits:
1. Assisting you in devising an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategy tailored to your hotel’s needs.
2. Reducing the costs associated with pest control by implementing cost-effective methods.
3. Supplying expert guidance on pest control measures to ensure a safe and pleasant environment for your customers.
