NEWH - Spring 2021 - 10

GUEST PERSPECTIVE

Post-Pandemic Healthy Hotels and
Resorts: The Four Pillars of Healthy Hotels

BY TIM LEMONS
L2 STUDIOS

A

s we find ourselves through the first month of 2021,
the days are often filled with emotions that range
from frustration and apprehension, to optimism with
moments of joy, and then right back to frustration
in the form of panic and concern. Beginning full force in March
2020, we experienced the rapid onset of the COVID-19 novel
coronavirus, putting a major dent in the worldwide economy and
mostly stopping the hospitality industry. While our leaders and
medical professionals have been learning more and more every
week and have tried to steer us through these difficult times, it is
clear that we are not back to normal, nor have we reached a " new
normal " yet.
As tension continues to build between a desire for normality and
a concern for safety for ourselves, our employees, and our guests,
the demand for quality healthy hotels will steadily increase.
People and businesses are moving toward a new normal that
includes leisure and limited business travel. The limited reopening
we experienced in the last quarter of 2020 has given us a taste
of what we've been missing, and it is fueling a resurging market
from a traveling public that seeks quality accommodations where
we can have new and safe experiences.
How can the hospitality industry support the re-emerging
demand for both leisure and business travel while increasing
safety for the guests and minimizing or eliminating pathogen

transmission? The answer is by providing healthy hotels that
are WELL buildings. This is not a new concept-hospitals have
been designed as WELL buildings for decades. Hotels have been
a component of the wellness economy since wellness started to
be considered a trend, and industry, many years ago. Considered
by the WELL Building Institute, a WELL building provides a built
environment that supports human health and wellbeing through
air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort, and mind.
How can we design new hotels and enhance existing hotels
that are defensive against COVID-19 and future epidemics
and pandemics? There are four primary pillars for design and
renovation to support the fundamentals of healthy hotels.
The first pillar, and perhaps most important, is air quality.
Studies have shown that viral pathogen transmission occurs via
two primary vehicles: atomization of contaminated aerosols via
the air from the infected person into the lungs and eyes of other
people, and from contact with contaminated surfaces. Increased
hygiene and sanitation easily minimizes the possibility of infection
from surface contact, but elimination of airborne transmission
requires either a physical barrier (face mask and eye protection
for all) or air sanitation-filtration to direct the contaminated air
flow away from people where it can be filtered with true HEPA
filters and/or sterilized with UV-C light or ionization before
returning the clean air back to the occupied spaces.

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NEWH - Spring 2021

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