Probably by the time I hit send on this things will have changed again regarding the situation over lock down and accommodation providers.
We have adopted the Safe Travels guidelines put forth by the World Travel and Tourism Council on providing hospitality in a post-Covid19 world. These “Safe Travels” guidelines take input from leading hospitality companies either directly or from their public announcements around the safe, healthy and responsible reopening of hotels to the public. The protocols also take into account World Health Organisation (WHO) and the US’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines. It feels like we are playing with the big boys here, as the guidelines have been adopted by large hotel chains (and us at Cliff House!)
Why have we adopted the Safe Travel guidelines? Well, at the time of writing this there is no government accreditation scheme or firm guidance – there is talk that Visit England may have something soon, but that has been the case for many a week. At the end of the day, whatever is produced for England will not be a million different to what has been suggested by the World Travel and Tourism Council or indeed the Scottish Government who have already issued guidance for the hospitality sector there. The 4th of July has been the date touted as to when we will be able welcome guests back, but again its just a date – no confirmation of the date and indeed no denial that that isn’t the date either. Part of being able to welcome people back is being able to provide assurance and for the moment until there is a more local standard we can follow and adopt we will use the Safe Travels standard from World Travel and Tourism Council.
Essentially everything comes down to carrying out a risk assessment of what the risks are in a post Covid/Cornona virus world – the “new normal” as it is being called and what are our mitigations. There are things we can take steps to mitigate and things we can’t. We can introduce additional cleaning to high contact areas, we can limit or control access to the few communal areas we have, but we cannot mitigate against you wanting (using an extreme example) to lick a door handle or not wash your hands.
Where we can take direct action….
- Limit Access to the pool and games room areas by introducing a rota for each cottage
- New hygiene equipment in shared toilets.
- Alcohol gel dispensers in the pool area, games room and the outside play area as well.
- Remove toys from all cottages
- Limit/remove books in all cottages
- Give the option to have soft furnishings like throws and cushions removed for the duration of a stay
- Ask guests to strip beds at the end of the stay – not what we’d have ever considered in a million years asking, but it helps.
- Communicate to our guests – this post is part of that, as is our newsletter and the mails we will send to guests before their stay.
- Our cleaning is thorough to start with, and our local firm of cleaners already use the appropriate supplies to ensure a thorough clean between guests – but there is no harm in rubbing a little harder around the the major contact areas 🙂
Hopefully this has given you a slightly light hearted view over our approach to Covid at Cliff House – balance has to be found between putting in restrictive rules and providing a relaxing holiday environment. It is an evolving situation and we will evolve with it and keep you informed here and via our newsletter.
Please do get in touch, if you need to talk through what we are doing.
