The Future Hospitality Days, which celebrated their premiere in 2022 as an innovative industry event, once again invited players from the hotel industry in the DACH region to exchange ideas and set future impulses together. Sustainability in particular has long since become a decisive market criterion and was therefore given its own award. The astonishing result: all three winners of the Sustainable Hospitality Awards 2023 rely on green cleaning and completely dispense with chemical agents when cleaning and disinfecting.
The Henriette Stadthotel in Vienna, the Hotel Schwarzwald Panorama in Bad Herrenalb and the Seehotel Wiesler in Titisee-Neustadt received this year's Sustainable Hospitality Awards for their pioneering role in terms of sustainability, as they set important standards for the industry with their concepts. As varied and individual as the respective sustainability strategies of all three hotels are, the winners interestingly use a common ingredient for their recipe for success: by switching to green cleaning, they completely avoid the use of chemical cleaning agents and disinfectants. To protect the environment and employees.
Industry experience meets innovation
All three winners will receive support in implementing the Green Cleaning Concept from the Rosenheim-based company Medeco Cleantec. Medeco founder Fritz Pattis, who was also one of the speakers at the Future Hospitality Days 2023, comes from the hotel industry himself and knows about the special challenges when it comes to cleaning. "A successful hotel needs an uncompromising standard of hygiene, but at the same time cleaning must also be efficient and economical. Added to these challenges is the issue of sustainability, which is becoming increasingly important. It seems almost impossible to reconcile all of these requirements, but with Green Cleaning it's no problem." At the heart of the concept are modern and compact micro dry steam appliances which, in comparison to conventional steam cleaners, generate so-called saturated steam at over 180 degrees, which only has a water content of just 5 to 7 percent. This means that all surfaces can be cleaned hygienically and gently at the same time, while the hot dry steam thermally disinfects at the same time.
Ecological and economical in one
"Every cleaning agent leaves behind residues to which new dirt and germs can quickly adhere. Even more so where there is a lot of frequent cleaning," explains Fritz Pattis. However, this vicious circle can be easily broken by cleaning without chemicals, using only micro dry steam. "Only surfaces without dirt and residue are really clean and therefore do not provide a breeding ground for germs." But it's not just in terms of hygiene that hotels benefit from completely dispensing with cleaning chemicals. On the one hand, employees are no longer exposed to aggressive substances and vapors that can attack the skin and respiratory tract. Green cleaning is also easy on the budget by eliminating the costs of cleaning agents, the resulting waste and the higher water consumption required for this. "Green Cleaning uses only around 5 to 10 % of the water required for conventional cleaning and a little electricity. What's more, it's much quicker and enables more efficient use of personnel."
