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Hotel stays may not be the best move, but if you must, here’s how to do it safely
Hotel bookings are still at a record low, but travelers are beginning to consider reserving rooms this summer as states reopen. Whether you’re planning a hotel stay for pleasure or out of necessity, you should first read through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s list of considerations for travelers — there are a number of new risks and health safety precautions you’ll need to consider before and throughout your stay in a hotel. Beyond those basics, here’s a detailed guide to how public health experts suggest staying safe during your next hotel stay.
How hotels are responding to Covid-19
America’s major hotel chains know that cleanliness is a top concern for travelers right now. In response, most have rolled out increased cleaning protocols that they’ve made available online.
Hilton recently announced its “Hilton CleanStay,” which includes new practices like extra disinfecting of high touch areas in guest rooms, increased cleaning of public areas, and a room seal to visually indicate that the room hasn’t been accessed since it was disinfected. Similar measures are being taken at chains like Hyatt, Marriott, and throughout IHG’s 5,000 hotel properties around the United States.
If you can’t find recently published cleaning standards for the hotel, call before you book to ask what’s being done. “Places that have nothing to hide will be happy to share the information with you,” says Natascha Tuznik, DO, an assistant clinical professor of infectious diseases at UC Davis Health. “If they don’t know or they won’t share, then maybe that’s a warning sign.”
Susan Hassig, DrPH, an associate professor of epidemiology at Tulane University’s School of Public Health, also recommends calling ahead to find out what the hotel’s current procedures are regarding room turnover rate. Are they allowing the rooms to air out for at least 24 hours before permitting new guests to enter? Or are you, prior guests, and housekeeping staff all entering the room within a few hours of each other? If so, there could be an increased risk of viral particles in the air.
Consider states’ travel restrictions
A patchwork of reopening plans and state-to-state variances on whether hotels are deemed as essential businesses means it is going to take some digging to figure out which hotels are open and which may still be closed. If it’s not immediately clear on the hotel’s website, check the state or local health department website of the destination you’re planning to visit. Look for information about reopening plans and see if you can find out where hotels fall within that. If you can’t find what you need there, quickly Googling “[state name] travel advisory” should work. Additionally, most states’ official tourism websites have up-to-date travel information available.
You will also need to consider whether the state you’re traveling to requires a 14-day quarantine for incoming travelers. It’s admittedly hard for states to actually monitor these new quarantine requirements, but it’s good practice to follow them. Hotels in areas with self-quarantine requirements may only be able to accept stays of 14 days or longer from out-of-state guests.
Are you, prior guests, and housekeeping staff all entering the room within a few hours of each other? If so, there could be an increased risk of viral particles in the air.
Does the size of the hotel matter?
Despite there likely being more people in a large hotel, Eleanor Murray, ScD, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Boston University’s School of Public Health, thinks it could potentially still be a better option than a small, independent property. “A really big hotel probably also has a really large lobby, a hotel restaurant where people can be spaced out, and resources to have extra cleaning staff,” she says. “At a small bed and breakfast, if the common areas are very small, that would create a lot of places where you would come in close contact with other guests or the hotel staff and potentially not be able to have that six-foot distance.”
However, Tuznik adds, “If the hotel is in a popular area, there are likely going to be more travelers from different corners of the world going in and out of these rooms.” If you’re staying in a large hotel with guests from all over, that could certainly weave in an added layer of risk.
As a third option, Murray recommends looking for a bungalow-style hotel or motel, where each room has its own entrance and hallways are more like outdoor walkways. “That could potentially be a really good solution,” she says. “There, your living conditions are actually physically separated from others, and you don’t have to worry about air circulation or elevators or anything like that.”
What to do about elevators
Before booking a room in a high-rise hotel, you’ll want to think about how you’ll handle elevator protocol. To avoid elevators entirely, you may even want to call ahead and ask for a ground room floor or one on a level low enough that you can access it via the stairs.
If you do need to take the elevator, wear a mask, avoid touching the buttons (an elbow should do the trick), and ideally, you should ride it only with your own party. If that’s not possible, default to the now-standard six-feet-apart rule. Tuznik says in hospitals, the current standard in elevators is no more than one person per corner, even though sometimes that may not be quite six feet.
If you really want to make sure you’re keeping your distance in an elevator, it may require some pointed conversations with other guests. “If people try to get in, you may have to say, ‘This elevator’s full. You’ll have to wait for the next one,’” Murray says. “You also need to respect if people say that to you.”
What to do when you arrive at the hotel
Anytime you’re in an indoor public area of a hotel (a lobby, hallway, elevator, etc.), you should wear a mask. If your keycard is not contactless (some hotels are now making rooms accessible via apps on smartphones) you may want to sanitize the card after the desk clerk hands it to you.
Once you get into the room, the first order of business is washing your hands and sanitizing your suitcase. “It’s important to remember that our suitcases can become pretty disgusting even if they’re not visibly dirty,” says Tuznik. “People sometimes have a habit of throwing them on the bed but I would not advise doing that.” Instead, put it on one of the suitcase racks that come standard in most hotels and wipe it down with a disinfectant.
Another good precaution is to take off your shoes to avoid tracking particles around the room. If you’re fresh off a flight, you could change and bag up the clothes you flew in, but most experts agree that it’s not necessary to be quite this extreme. “It comes down to washing your hands really well, taking off your shoes, and that’s probably the most you need to do,” says Tuznik.
Next comes the hard surface scrub down. While the room should have been thoroughly sanitized prior to your arrival, it’s still a good precaution to use EPA-approved disinfectants to disinfect high-touch, nonporous surfaces. In a hotel room, these tend to be things like nightstands, phones, countertops, desks, door handles, faucets, and toilet handles.
Two hotel room items that you’ll want to pay extra attention to are the TV remote and any glassware. To sterilize the latter, Tuznik recommends washing them with hot water and hand soap unless dish soap is available. If using hand soap, rinse glassware under hot water for a couple of minutes. To avoid any virus particles that could potentially be on the TV remote, Tuznik has a simple solution: Drop the remote in a ziplock plastic bag so you don’t have to touch it directly.
Once you get into the room, the first order of business is washing your hands and sanitizing your suitcase.
Hotel bedding
An easy way to feel better about the cleanliness of hotel bedding is to look for a room with a removable duvet cover. Scott Meschke, PhD, an environmental and occupational health microbiologist at the University of Washington, says these tend to be cleaner than the old-fashioned hotel bedspreads as they’re easier to remove and wash. You may also want to toss aside any decorative pillows as a precaution.
All hotels should have strict guidelines on how they launder their bed linens. These are typically low risk. However, it is worth noting that most medium to large hotels use an off-site service for laundry, and this could bring in an unknown variable. Hassig says, “That’s just one of the challenges when you move into an environment that you don’t control. You’re going to have to have some level of trust in the institution and the systems they have in place.”
A few final specifics to consider
Housekeeping: All of the public health experts agree that the more you can minimize exposure to others, the better. One easy way to do this is to forgo housekeeping services as much as possible during the course of your stay. Ideally, you’d forgo it entirely. You can always call down to the front desk whenever you need fresh towels or more toiletries.
The hotel pool: “The pool itself is fine,” says Murray. The bigger concern will be trying to maintain a safe distance from others while everyone is swimming. Other than the proximity issue, you’ll also need to consider any hard surfaces you may touch around the pool area (pool chairs, loungers, etc.). However, she adds that if it’s an outdoor pool and the area is sunny, UV light will likely help to destroy any virus particles, so don’t lose too much sleep if you miss a spot.
Hotel ventilation system concerns: “For the most part, you really don’t need to worry about the hotel’s ventilation system,” says Tuznik. “Typically, this time of year we’re talking about air conditioning more than we are about heaters. Usually, air conditioners—at least the well-functioning ones—are enclosed systems and are not supposed to be spewing water vapors into the room.”
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