Whether you’re travelling for business or pleasure, the hotel laundry service is going to cost you plenty.

I mean, it’s nice to return to your hotel room to find fresh linen and fluffy towels, or to come back from the self-service facilities with a bundle of clean clothing, but it’s a huge mood-dampener when you discover just how much money you spend on getting the damn stuff cleaned once you’ve seen your bill.

So how come the laundry services at these places are so pricey?

Listen up – there are four factors at work here:

Outsourcing laundry service

To quote from an article found on Hotel Management: “Hotels are built for hospitality; they aren’t in the laundry business”.

Blunt, but true: rather than make little money from a high demand for laundry service, they’d rather rake in the big bucks by raising prices from low demand.

It’s a huge cost-cutting measure to partner up with outside vendors instead of reinvesting in on-property machines, new facilities and training. Modern automated folding equipment can handle between 600 to 800 linens per hour, while us mere humans can only do between 100 to 120 linens.

Thing is, vendors often ask for premium rates which include the actual cost as well as fees for themselves. Not to mention the pesky additional compensation in case of potential disasters.

Using their own equipment

If they decide against outsourcing, then hotels can spend a good amount of money on keeping a dedicated laundry staff, proper machines, maintenance and so on.

And given that guests don’t really have a choice in the matter, hotel owners can go wild with charging high price rates, causing your bill to skyrocket.

Tax hikes and service charge

We’re living in bleak times, my friends: this year alone, we’ve already seen a steep VAT increase and an eye-watering petrol price hike.

Of course, such hikes would affect the prices of hotel services, especially laundry. Combined with costs of electricity and water, as well as the service charge, you’re bound to be forking out a lot of moolah.

Cleaning chemicals

It’s simply not a case of washing linen and leaving ’em out to dry.

Guests go through a ton of sheets, linens and towels, and hotels who do their own laundry service must keep them as clean as possible. Per an article on Web Restaurant Store, they’ll have to splurge on purchasing a variety of pre-spotters detergents, neutralisers, bleaches and fabric softeners.

And they’ve all got jobs to do: softening the textures, whitening the material, eliminating stubborn stains … it goes on.

Combined with using their own equipment, making up the total expenses is a sure-fire way for hotels to gain money from guests.

So, if you guys are staying at a hotel somewhere and got some dirty laundry you want to take care of, maybe it’s best to check out the local laundromat.

Or pay that premium price.

[sources:hotelmanagement&webrestaurantstore]