It begins with the doorknobs, one of the first touchpoints for most guests.
“The knobs, the handles, surfaces, fridge … We’re focusing on disinfecting the things guests touch,” said Jorge Seda, a room attendant at Westgate Lakes Resort & Spa in Orlando.
An employee with Westgate for three years, Seda now follows a detailed checklist of places to disinfect in every room, part of the safety protocols the resort chain put into practice at their seven Orlando-area hotels. His concern with this new process is as much about his own protection as the customers’.
“We clean it all so that we don’t get contaminated and [the guests] don’t get contaminated,” he said.
Hotels have been one of the hardest-hit industries during the COVID-19 pandemic, in part because travelers are wary about staying in such communal spaces. In Central Florida, occupancy rates have rarely risen above 30%, a drastic decrease for an area that often saw more than 90% capacity last year.
In response, sanitation has become one of the hallmarks of how hotels are presenting themselves to the public. On websites and advertisements, hotels and resorts reference a “commitment to clean,” with some publishing detailed descriptions of their new sanitation protocols.
“Fortunately or unfortunately, however you want to see it … we had been here before,” said Mark Waltrip, chief operating officer for Westgate Resorts, referring to a few years ago when Westgate had an outbreak of norovirus at its Las Vegas casino. “When that happened, we had to bring in some medical experts on viral containment, cleaning procedures and advanced protocols.”
Westgate carried over the lessons learned during that outbreak to the rules they adopted at its hotels the first week of March, Waltrip said. In April, they launched WestgateCARES, a website with access to the resort chain’s training videos and procedural handbooks.
“The first thing our company did was to train us how to deal with the virus,” said housekeeper Ledy Zelaya. “How to wear masks, how to use gloves, how to keep our distance.”
The company also reduced the number of rooms each staff member needs to get to in a day “so that we can concentrate on more detail,” Zelaya said.
Giving staff more time is one of the recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines to hotel owners and staff. Most of the protocols are things the public has gotten used to in the nine months since the pandemic came to the U.S.
Employees are required to wear masks and guests have to wear them in common, indoor areas such as the lobby or the game room. They wear gloves and are required to wash their hands before and after certain interactions.
Front desk employees are shielded behind plastic barriers, and the lobby is marked with social distancing lines and hand-sanitizer stations.
Guests at Westgate Lakes notice the first difference at drive-thru check-in, where they can use their cellphones to scan a QR code and enter their reservations. Guests place their driver’s license in a box that scans them into the system. They are then sent to park in designated spots and await their room keys and hotel information, brought out on a tray by a gloved and masked staff member.
On the check-in menu, guests have the option to order groceries to their rooms, cutting out another in-person interaction.
Every team member gets a temperature screening every day. Guests are also required to be screened, using a facial scan, before entrance to places such as the on-site restaurants and game rooms.
General manager Brahim Ait Daoud said Westgate will limit occupancy to 50% when demand gets that high again.
Lobby restrooms are closed once every 24 hours for deep cleaning. Public surfaces, such as handrails, are cleaned at least every four hours. Outdoor seating around the pool is spaced out by six feet and treated with an ultra-low volume disinfecting fog when anyone leaves.
Westgate offers group activities for all ages, but they limit attendance to keep recommended social distancing.
Gone are the days of housekeepers remaking the bed and refreshing the towels while guests are out for the day. Housekeeping only enters the rooms between reservations. During a stay, guests can request items such as fresh towels to be placed outside the door.
When guests check out, two-person cleaning teams handle each suite. A visual checklist offers 10 points of contact to sanitize, from the key slot in the door to the thermostat and curtains.
Laundry is taken to an off-site facility where it is cleaned and disinfected using traditional washing and UV light treatments.
Waltrip said guests have tested positive and been quarantined. Guests who present symptoms are asked to seek medical attention.
Employees are sent home if they present any symptoms of the disease as specified by the CDC, according to Ait Daoud. Employees who test positive are must receive two negative tests before returning to work and are provided with additional sick time pay.
The additional procedures aren’t free. Westgate estimates they have spent more than $5 million on training and protective equipment for employees and guests.
In a webpage about travel risks, the CDC still recommends not traveling as the safest option. If someone is intent on doing so, the CDC recommends they check the posted safety procedures for any hotel they’re staying at, and consider calling ahead to make sure all employees are masked.
An employee with Westgate since 2013, Zelaya noted it helps her to think of the procedures on a personal level.
“We have to think of cleaning our rooms like cleaning our house,” she said.
Want to reach out? Email tfraser@orlandosentinel.com.
