ORLANDO, Fla. — Over the past year, Rosen Hotels & Resorts located here, has been renovating rooms in two of its seven properties: the 800-room Rosen Plaza Hotel and the 1,500-room Rosen Shingle Creek Resort.
“It’s a modernization, updating them from top to bottom,” says Nick Fertig, director of laundry for Rosen and a member of the American Laundry News Editorial Advisory Board. “Corridors inside the rooms, all of the furniture, completely different bathrooms, the whole nine yards.
“You design the room. You get samples in. You set up multiple mock rooms to see what the design looks like. You invite salespeople in, marketing people in, executives in. Everybody takes a look to see which room they like, what style they like. What do the salespeople think would hit our customer base better, trying to cater to the clientele and different things?
“Once you decide on the room that you want, then you’ve got all of the manufacturing that has to take place for all the furniture that you’ve selected and getting all that stuff done with delivery dates, selecting general contractors, liquidating existing furniture — planning that whole process out before you even take your first room out for the so-called renovation.”
Fertig has been deeply involved in the process because new linens are a key part of Rosen’s room updates.
TRANSITION SCHEDULE
The first set of rooms for the 800-room property started to turn around in February.
“It’s kind of a floor-by-floor process,” says Fertig. “We get one floor completely taken out, do some things to it. Midway through that, we take out the floor below it, and then they start to come back every three to four weeks.”
The change to the new linen products started before the renovations began. The new top sheet for that property has been delivered and every room, old or new, has it.
“Operationally for the hotel, and also for my laundry, to have different top sheets would be an absolute nightmare for them to put them away in the closets, to make sure they only get to the floors that have been finished, me needing a completely new cart to separate yet another product line on my cart-building line,” Fertig says. “Things like that, like pillowcases, top sheets, all that stuff is in now and in full use.
“Things like mattress pads, blankets, pillows and stuff like that, the vendors have a delivery schedule for those that coincides with about two to three days before the rooms are supposed to come back. And so, as 12 rooms come back, 12 rooms’ worth of mattress pads, blankets and pillows will be delivered simply because of space constraints and having to manage that process. For those things, it’s a lot easier to do in a sort of piecemeal, phased approach.
“Our larger property’s renovation is just kicking off. The legwork is being started on that for maybe the first floor to be taken out toward the end of February.”
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Fertig says that hotel laundry operators are sometimes overlooked in the renovation process. A “synergy” is needed between management planning and input from the laundry.
“Really insert yourself into that process, because at the end of the day, you’re ultimately going to be responsible for ... what is the first thing the guest sees after they go into the lobby? They go into the room, and the first thing they see is their linen,” he says.
“Ultimately, you need to be involved in the process every single step of the way because you’re the one who’s going to be accountable for that first impression of the room. Does the bed look nice? Does it look crisp? Is the terry clean? Does it smell good?
“And the only way to know that you’re going to be able to provide that product is by being involved in this RFP process by test-washing, by making sure that you’re involved every single step of the way and that your voice is heard.”
Derek Baum, Rosen’s vice president of facilities and building operations, says that feedback from the test-washing is the biggest benefit from involving the hotel’s laundry operation.
“Running sample products through our actual processes gives us a clear, practical view of how each option performs,” he says. “This hands-on approach helps us avoid buyer’s remorse and provides operation-specific data that directly informs our decisions.”
Click HERE to read part 1 about Rosen’s room renovations and linen RFPs. Read about the role Rosen’s laundry department played in the linen selection process, read part 2 HERE.
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Matt Poe at [email protected].
