Hospitality & Hotels Pest Control

The hospitality industry hosts millions of travelers each day and must provide clean, comfortable, and pest free environments as part of their services. Failure to do so can have dire consequences for individual establishments and whole hotel chains. From bed bugs in guest rooms to fruit flies in the bar, even one pest can ruin your reputation. Indeed, independent consumer-driven online reporting databases track incidents and infestations all over the world. Smithereen’s tailored Integrated Pest Management programs include proactive hotel pest control and effective responses to pest activity with the rapid service needed in sensitive environments. Let Smithereen specialists protect your customers, brand, and image. 

Monitoring Your Hotel for Signs of Pests  

Before pest-control professionals can implement comprehensive pest remediation services for hotels, they must first know what kind of problems need managing. Although preventative pest control should be a priority for every business in the hospitality sector (which we’ll discuss in more detail in the next section), many motels, hotels, and bed & breakfasts wait until pests have settled in multiple harborage spots throughout their properties before contacting a professional. 

If you believe that you have active insect, mammal, or wildlife populations in your business, understand that the proper pest control procedure in hotels involves monitoring your real estate for signs of pests. Look for the following: 

• Droppings 
• Wings, chitinous matter, and dead insects 
• Blood spots on sheets 
• Odd, musty smells 
• Obvious cracks around walls, plumbing fixtures, doors, and windows 
• Frass (powdery material indicative of the presence of wood-boring insects) 
• Spiderwebs 
• Active or abandoned nests 
• Complaints from customers 

Conveying such information to a Smithereen technician can help provide you with top-notch pest control in hotels and other hospitality properties.  

Prioritize Pest Prevention and Treatments  

The gold-standard in pest control is Integrated Pest Management (IPM), an approach that the CDC describes as “a science-based, common-sense approach for reducing populations of disease vectors and public health pests. IPM uses a variety of pest management techniques that focus on pest prevention, pest reduction, and the elimination of conditions that lead to pest infestations. IPM simply means (1) don’t attract pests, (2) keep them out, and (3) get rid of them, if you are sure you have them, with the safest, most effective methods.” 

As practitioners of IPM, we here at Smithereen Pest Management Services understand that it’s far easier to keep pests out of vacation rentals and resorts than it is to deal with them once they’ve gotten established. In fact, we could say that IPM involves different types of pest control in hotels. For instance, we’ve already discussed the need to inspect the premises for signs of infestation and in order to identify specific pests. The next type of pest control required involves the removal of existing populations through either chemical (i.e., pesticide) or mechanical (i.e., traps) means. This is what people think of when they imagine exterminators at work. 

However, IPM includes other, potentially more important steps. After the immediate problem has been addressed and the harbored pests removed, a technician will seek to cut off their food, water, access, and shelter. Hoteliers and hospitality managers should consider these preventative steps. Finally, pest control professionals will continue to monitor the site at regular intervals to ensure that a resurgence doesn’t occur. Though Smithereen understands the importance of maintaining margins, skimping on these final two steps will invariably lead to more infestations. The importance of pest control in hotel industry contexts hinges on prioritizing prevention.