Hotel Tech-in is our regular feature that takes a closer look at emerging technology in the hospitality industry.
Furry hotel guests can make for adorable photo ops and delightful memories. But as today’s travelers increasingly bring pets on trips, hoteliers are learning about something else that accompanies them: unwanted smells.
“One of the number one complaints customers have that hoteliers are fearful of is odor issues,” said Blake Bobosky, vice president of sales and marketing at Johnson City, Tennessee-based Greentech Environmental, a company that develops air purification systems.
So today’s pet-friendly hotels are faced with a question: How can they cater to animal-loving guests without detracting from the experience of others?
Bobosky thinks odor-fighting technology is the solution. Hotel Dive sat down with him to talk about hotels’ toughest smell problems and how air filters can tackle them in a way fragrances can’t.
How it works
You may not have heard of Greentech’s ODOGard technology, but it’s in 90% of all adult diapers, some odor-reducing garbage bags and other household products, where it “eliminates odors at the molecular level,” Bobosky said.
Greentech Environmental was founded in 2009, but more recently, it has integrated the smell-fighting tech into air filters. As a means of testing it out, the company installed those filters in a very smelly place — an indoor cannabis growing facility – in 2021.
When the company was ready to expand beyond agriculture, one of the industries most eager to try it was hospitality. “We're in about 15,000 hotel rooms now,” Bobosky shared, adding that while higher-end properties have shown the most interest, the filters are in hotels across chain scales.
Many properties were combatting smells with fragrances, which Bobosky said “isn’t doing anything for your customer other than masking a problem,” adding that scents can often trigger allergies, too.
Transitioning to odor-busting tech is fairly seamless, Bobosky said, noting that hotels already install and regularly switch out air filters in their mini split systems. Greentech’s MERV filters — which consist of nanofibers thinner than human hair — can be installed the same way, and have ODOGard embedded within them.
Smell and the guest experience
To better understand the impact of smells, Greentech conducted a survey of 1,000 travelers, and 61% said they have concerns about odor in pet-friendly hotels or rentals. Some 71% said they would consider leaving a bad review or complaining in the case of bad smells at a hotel or rental.
And bad reviews are more than just embarrassing for hoteliers — they can lower hotel room values, studies have shown.
Beyond pet smells, hoteliers were also dealing with mold and must issues, as well as smells left by cannabis smokers, Bobosky said.
And now that a growing number of hotel rooms offer apartment-style accommodations with kitchens, odors from cooking have been a concern.
According to Bobosky, by eliminating smells properly, guests can feel at home in their hotel room.
“The last thing that a business traveler or vacationer wants to think about is who was in the room the night before,” he said.
