A new study titled “Hotel Hygiene Exposed” finds that the average hotel room is teaming with more icky bacteria than a typical home, airplane, or school. It’s almost enough to tempt a traveling germophobe to sleep on the airport bench instead.
“We’re definitely not trying to scare anyone,” says Emily Pierce, project manager for Travelmath, which conducted the study. “We wanted to know just how many bacteria we could find on common surfaces in the hotel rooms.”
Teams armed with cotton swabs, plastic bags, and strong stomachs tested rooms in nine different hotels. Three-star, four-star, and five-star hotels in a variety of locations were included in the study.
The result? Not only did Travelmath find that hotel rooms had ample populations of those microscopic creepy-crawlies, they discovered that four-star and five-star hotel rooms tend to be dirtier than less luxurious three-star hotels.
What a surprise: Travelmath found that the more standard three-star hotel rooms generally had less bacteria than their four-star and five-star counterparts.
In the Travelmath study, each team swabbed the same four surfaces in each hotel room they visited: the bathroom counter, the remote control, the desk, and the phone. According to the study description, Travelmath “tested for the presence of various types of bacteria (including bacilli and cocci), yeast, and gram-positive rods (bacteria that cause various ailments, such as skin infections and pneumonia) and gram-negative rods (bacteria that cause respiratory and other infections).”
The results prove that luxury doesn’t necessarily buy cleanliness. Here’s a breakdown:
1. Bathroom counters
You might not want to eat off this counter.
A study cited by WebMD found the average household bathroom had 452 bacteria per square inch. But Travelmath finds hotel bathrooms are far dirtier: Three-star hotels have an average of 320,007 colony-forming units (CFU) per square inch; four-star hotels an average of 2,534,773 CFU per square inch; five-star hotels an average of 1,011,670 CFU per square inch. The overall hotel average is 1,288,817 CFU per square inch.
2. Remote controls
Where has this remote been?
You’d think that with the variety of luxury amenities offered in four-star and five-star hotels, everyone would be too busy being pampered and fed to watch TV. But it seems like lots of grubby hands are handling remote controls. Like bathroom counters, Travelmath found the remote controls in some luxury hotels tend to be on the gnarly side.
Consider that University of Arizona researcher Charles Gerba tells News.au that the average household remote has a bacteria count of 17,000 per square inch. In contrast, hotel remotes, according to Travelmath’s study, rated as such: Three-star hotels have an average of 232,733 CFU per square inch; four-star hotels an average of 1,400,027 CFU per square inch; and five-star hotels an average of 2,002,300 CFU per square inch. The overall hotel average is 1,211,687 CFU per square inch.
“It’s important to keep in mind that it’s not necessarily how much people are using these items overall,” adds Pierce, “but maybe how well they’re being cleaned after the stay.” Yeah, but how many times have we ever seen a hotel housekeeper — or anyone else, for that matter — clean a remote control?
3. The desks
The desk looks good, but deep down it may have some bacteria issues.
You can put your laptop on the hotel desk, but think twice about putting your sandwich there. Desks can get filthy, especially if you stay in four-star hotels. Travelmath found: Three-star hotels have an average of 4,687 CFU per square inch; four-star hotels an average of 1,800,003 CFU per square inch; and five-star hotels an average of 40,030 CFU per square inch. The overall hotel average is 604,907 CFU per square inch.
4. Hotel phones
A hotel phone: Remember those?
“We have cellphones now,” says Travelmath’s outreach manager Cristina Lachowyn. “People just aren’t touching the [hotel] phones.” Still, the Travelmath team swabbed the hotel room phones. Here’s what they found: Three-star hotels have an average of 11,403 CFU per square inch; four-star hotels an average of 137 CFU per square inch; and five-star hotels an average of 1,217 CFU per square inch. The overall hotel average is 4,252 CFU per square inch.
What germs are we talking about here?
If you’re worried about germs, you might not want to leave all the cleaning to the housekeeper.
The hotels tended to be dominated by lots of different germs. Travelmath found yeast was the big problem for bathrooms in three-star hotels, where the remote controls tended to be contaminated by Bacillus spp, which is linked to various infections, including respiratory and gastrointestinal ones. Bacillus spp also appears in four-star hotels, specifically on the remote and telephone. In five-star hotels, the phone was crawling with cocci.
As scary-sounding as that may be, there’s no need to go trying to book space in a hermetically sealed bubble during your next trip. Remember, if you’re reasonably healthy or not too young or too old, chances are your body does a good job of fighting off nasty bacteria on its own. And you can aid the anti-bacterial struggle yourself.
“There really are simple ways to avoid being negatively affected,” says Pierce. “Simple things like washing your hands can really take away the worry. Just practice common hygiene practices on a consistent basis.” Adds Lachowyn: “If you look at the distribution of the bacteria [in the study], most are very easy to wipe with one of those disinfectant wipes or using hand sanitizer.”
The study has the Travelmath people changing their own hotel habits. “I might wipe down the remote the next time I stay at a hotel,” says Lachowyn, “or be mindful of washing my hands or using hand sanitizer after I touch it. I think it’s more about being mindful of the fact that there is bacteria everywhere you go.”
And like you, it seems bacteria would rather go to four-star and five-star hotels.
Culled from Yahoo! Travel
