NORTH AMERICA/UK
The North America linen rental association TRSA is presenting a live webinar on ‘Why U.K. Hotel Linen Rental Leads and How US Can Follow’ at the end of September. The virtual event is scheduled for 27 September, 10 – 11 am ET. It is free to TRSA members and $45 to non-members. Presenters will be David Stevens, CEO of the UK’s Textile Services Association (TSA), pictured, and Mike Benik, chief operating officer, People’s Linen, Keene, New Hampshire for the USA.
This ‘hands across the water’ event will likely attract a lot of interest and promote debate from both sides of ‘the pond’. Attendees will get insight into why UK hotels prefer full-service linen rental to buying inventory and outsourcing its laundering. You’ll also hear from a US linen service that has 90% of its hotel volume in rental as opposed to customer-owned goods (COG). The vast majority of US TRSA members who specialise in this market point to difficulty achieving such success as rental fees are higher and customers don’t do the math to recognise the bottom-line benefit. In the UK, linen services can charge more for COG. Hoteliers view rental as more effective, economical and satisfying to guests.
The virtues of rental perceived by hoteliers that may incline them to choose this option include:
• Simplicity of delegating purchasing and laundering so they can dedicate labour to other functions
• Linen service pinpoints losses by evaluating each customer’s linen replacement rate, recognizing where deliveries exceed pick-ups
• Availability of luxury, mid-scale and economy linen lines
• Expertise of linen service in choosing merchandise economises with selection of more durable, equally attractive products
Delegates will be able to learn from rental success stories how hoteliers recognise they don’t buy enough linen on their own, which requires repeated servicing of the same linen. They realize their merchandise costs increase and so do the linen service’s (especially route labour and fuel). Hoteliers ultimately bear these COG service costs, further increasing the allure of rental.
This TRSA webinar is not eligible for refunds. Please contact TRSA for assistance.
