Housekeeping

Innovative turn down

Harish Kulkarni

Delighting the guest by various innovative ways is a major challenge faced by today's housekeepers. Housekeepers have added new dimensions to their roles of cleaning and maintaining the property; they have now donned a major responsibility of finding out various ways which make the guest feel satisfied and provide the "WOW" factor. Housekeeping room attendants around the world are always looking for ways to entertain and 'connect' with hotel guests to elevate the feeling of service. Since housekeeping staff often do not directly interact with the guests, room attendants find innovative ways to remind guests that they are being taken care of.

Housekeepers across all the hotels are in a race to find out new innovative ways which attract the guest and makes him a return guest for the hotel. Some of the most common ways to please the guest with innovative ways are:

• Providing the turn down amenities instead of good night chocolates
• Having new exotic flowers placed in the guest room rather than the common ones like orchids, etc
• Providing with the hand wash laundry
• Innovative ways of delivering the laundry

One needs to be very innovative to find out various ways to provide delightful surprises to the guests. These small innovations help the property in the long run by achieving the maximum efficiency in the guest satisfaction area thus, increasing the profitability of the organisation by increasing the revenue in terms of return guests.

One of the best and simple ways to delight the guest that is rarely discussed and followed in the hotels is "Towel Origami". In short, towel origami is making various shapes including that of animals through simple folding of the towels in the guest room.

What is origami ?

In Japanese oru means "folding" and kami means "paper". It is the traditional Japanese art of folding paper. The goal of this art is to create the representation of the object using the geometric folds and crease patterns preferably without gluing or cutting the paper and using only one piece of paper. In short, Origami can be defined as "a form of visual or sculptural representation that is defined primarily by the folding of the medium like paper".

By adding some variations to the traditional origami method one can easily learn to do towel origami. While towel origami is not actually a true origami, one can still make different shapes of animals by employing the same techniques. Most of the people know how to fold a towel but folding towels to stack in the linen closet or in the pantry and folding towels for display requires different skills. Almost anyone can fold a towel in square or rectangle but very few of them can shape them in attractive shapes of animals often known as towel animals. Experienced origami followers may notice that some of the more traditional "rules" of origami are bent when folding towels. Rubber bands are often used to secure the towels into their shape. Google eyes, tails, sunglasses and other decorative elements are also incorporated into many of the designs.

A towel animal is a depiction of an animal created by folding small towels somewhat similar to origami, but uses towel rather than paper. Some common towel animals are elephants, swans, rabbits, dogs, etc.

The exact origin of towel origami is unknown but there popularity is often contributed to the carnival cruise liners. All the cruise liners will often place towel animals on the guest's bed as a part of their turn down service. In the early evening when the guests are out of the room for dinner a room attendant can place folded towels in the guest room. When the guests return they find delightful towel animals placed upon their beds or nightstands. If room attendant knows different towel folding designs, then the guest can see a different towel animal every night. It is a small decorative element that every guest will adore.

Application of the art

Initially training can be given to all the housekeepers and a particular towel fold can be placed during the turn down service to check the guest comments. If the received guest comments are positive over a period of time then this practice can be incorporated in the standard operating procedure of the turn down service of the property. Also ,in the apartment hotels the housekeepers can take training classes with the guest teaching them about various towel folding designs. Apart from turn down services the towel origami can be used:

• In gift baskets
• In hobby club or a part of school presentation
• In keeping the kids occupied
• For de-stressing after a long day of work.

Basic shapes and forms

Almost every variety of animal shapes from dog to snake can be made with the help of towel origami. The following is a demonstration of how to make a swan with the help of bath towel. The pair of swan is perfectly ideal for honeymoon turndown service on the bed as it gels very well with the unique honeymoon turndown service.

Swan:

1. Lay a bath towel flat.
2. Fold the edge and corners down and to the center.
3. Roll the folded edges firmly to meet at the center
4. Fold the resulting "scroll" shape in to a "Z"
5. Squeeze at the corners to set the curves.
6. Repeat for a swan companion whose neck can complete a heart shape.

Difficulties in the towel folding

The most common difficulty in the towel folding is that animals don't stand up stiff according to the position it should be kept. The very simple reason to this common problem is that the bath linen which is used might be very soft. Ideally little coarse bath linen can be used; specifically the pool towels can be the best option for the same.

Precautions:

The following precautions needs to be taken while making the towel folds:

• Do not overuse the accessories like pins, rubber bands as it may be difficult for the guest to use the towel.
• While making the folds, place the towel on a clean surface area so that it does not get soiled.

Harish Kulkarni is a Lecturer-Trainer, Housekeeping Apeejay Institute of Hospitality-The Park, Navi Mumbai