Maintaining hotel spas

Lifestyles have undergone a sea change and today, gyms and spas have become household names everywhere. Le Meridien, New Delhi, has created world class spas, gyms and spectacular health clubs with trainers and Ayurvedic consultancy and have a maintenance regime too.

Maintaining and cleaning the spas and gyms are a challenge but like any other cleaning solution for any area, proper planning, training and market feedback can work wonders. At Le Meridien night shift is utilised for thorough machine buffing and scrubbing of the wooden floors of the gym. Dry buffing is done with rotating non-abrasive pads. Natural stone floors in the spa areas are washed and sealed from time to time in a scheduled format, through regular stripping, crystallisation and polishing.

The walls and other surfaces, machine surfaces, massage tabletops are all wiped clean with relevant cleaners and wipes, which clean as well as disinfect them. Lastly, we use paracetic acid spray, 1:10/12 in water as the last wipe for areas like machine handles, steps and tabletops. This is actually an organic compound, PAA (Peroxyacetic acid) CH3CO3H, with a p Ka of 8.2. It is an ideal anti-microbial agent due to its high oxidising potential. It is broadly effective against all microorganisms and breaks down into safe and environment friendly residues, thus usable for non-rinsing applications. From time to time, oil spread is removed by sprinkling baking soda on oily surfaces for a while and wiping clean with natural fabric like cotton mops (washable).

Daily cleaning is done with backpack hoovers with nozzles/ brush/rotating attachments. The new nozzles can delve deep into sides/crevices, sofa creases and grooves.

To avoid cross contamination, we use colour coded cleaning materials for specific machines, spa areas and saloons. For e.g, we have completely different size, colour and weight for towels used by hairdressers, pedicurists, manicurist and beauticians. Separate stock is maintained for each area and updated regularly. Regular careful daily supervision seals the above work schedule for us, with daily logsheets for information transfer and management.