I recently was on a conference call with Hilton Hotels. They shared their Hilton Event Ready with CleanStay protocols. I always feel like every hotel has it's own "cleaning standards" and being on another Zoom or Teams call is a drag so I am hesitant to be on another hotel cleaning call. However, I am glad I participated. I was intrigued to see the detail to which Hilton has gone to implement their new meeting standards. Hilton formed a customer advisory board of over 100 meeting planners to ask what matters to them in meetings right now and what would make them feel safe to host a meeting with their properties. Of the customers surveyed the hot topics on their mind were:
Flexibility, Transparency, How to do a meeting.
Below is a snippet of how Hilton Hotels addressed our concerns and my take-aways from the call.
Event Ready room seal: all guestrooms are cleaned and when they are complete a seal is placed on the door. That seal is present when check into your room so the guest feels safe and knows that no one has entered the room since it was last sanitized. It's also super exciting to get to my room and bust the door open for the first time. It feels extra special and clean.
Meeting Room Set Ups:
1 person will be set per 6 ft for classroom style seating.
3 people per 72" round table for banquets.
All food and beverage will be set up in a separate room and outside if weather permits.
The refresh of the space takes 30 minutes to sanitize. This made me note that when planning out programming to give extra buffer time for breaks so the hotel has enough time to sanitize.
Sanitation stations in all lobbies and meeting areas.
Sanitation station next to proctor for speakers. I like this because if you have multiple speakers sharing equipment, this little touch adds a nice and needed layer of safety.
Buffets will be 12 ft from serving tables. All buffets will have a plexi guard and a staff serving meals when possible.
The staff to guest ratios have been increased for cleaning and managing purposes.
Rolled silverware handed to the guests, not placed on the tables.
Bento Boxes and Mason jars single use whenever possible. I like this because it adds creativity to the food and beverage program. Just because we're being safe doesn't mean we have to be boring.
I've seen the Taco Tuesday video that was circulating in the industry a couple months ago. I can say even though it's safe and healthy, the food and beverage product at Hilton is not boring. Check it out.
Flexibility:
Hilton launched Simplified Express Agreements. This will give more leniency with cancel, attrition and covid terms.
I actually have a meeting coming up at a Hilton at the end of October. I am excited to share the follow up of actually going through the "CleanStay" experience at that time.
If you have any questions about Hilton properties or any hotels' clean standards or Covid safe meeting set ups, ask me anytime. Here to help redesign your meeting and make it happen. mgraziano@hpnglobal.com
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