Could Vacation Rental Laundry Be a Profitable Niche for Your Operation?
While on vacation with my parents as kid and then later as a teen, I would, on occasion, look around me and take notice of all the various people who were involved in our “vacation experience” – from seasonal restaurant servers and finely trained resort staff to event coordinators and tour guides.
And I’d sometimes wander off in thought, considering what it must be like for these individuals to actually live in these popular “paradise destinations” year-round. I wondered if they enjoyed their home as much as all of the tourists who paid handsomely just to visit there for a short time.
Then, a couple of years ago, as I was driving down the legendary Pacific Coast Highway in one of my company vans to deliver a rush order to a guest’s room at the Hyatt Waterfront Hotel – which is located right on the Pacific Ocean – it hit me: “Oh my gosh, I am one of them!”
I laughed out loud at the realization that I am one of those people who factor into others’ lavish and handsomely paid for vacations. So, all these years later, I’ve finally answered my own question: “I live by the beach, man! I work hard, live here all the time, and it’s pretty cool, brah!” Then, I yelled “Cowabunga!” out the window to a passerby – well, not really, but you get the idea.
So what is this nut from California talking about? I’m talking about the “business of vacation” – more specifically, vacation laundry.
Listen to the Podcast
As I just touched on, the quick turnaround orders from hotel guests are great. It’s not a huge segment. However, if you have a vehicle and someone to drive it, you can bust out these typically small to medium-sized orders same day or overnight. The guests are always happy – and, although you’ll likely hit them with a rush fee or weight minimum, you’re saving them a bundle over their hotel’s guest laundry service, or at least a few hours in the local laundromat, maybe even your own.
But the real money is in sheets and towels. That’s the holy grail of commercial laundry – a large volume of standardized items. Of course, most laundromat’s wash-dry-fold businesses aren’t set up to service a 400-room hotel. Those clients will typically go to the big linen rental companies.
However, smaller motels and vacation rentals can provide a lucrative niche for many laundry operators. Now more than ever, vacationers (or “holiday-makers” as the British call them) enjoy a myriad of options for lodging accommodations – such as large hotel chains, extended stays, vacation homes, private apartments, and even RVs or boats. Moreover, today’s phone apps – including Airbnb, VRBO, Booking.com and more – offer seemingly infinite lodging options for guests, as well as new business opportunities for host operators.
These days, anyone with an investment property and an email address can be in the hospitality business. As a result, just like potential guests who do their research and read online reviews before booking their vacation stays (because they understand that not all lodging hosts are created equal), laundromat owners also should do their homework and know exactly with whom they’re doing business. It’s crucial to be wary of those who are “amateurizing” the industry.
By amateurizing, I’m referring to the fact that, contrary to the larger professional operators or chains, many of these rental properties may not be subject to many of the local regulations or fees created in the spirit to set certain standards for safety, sanitization and transparency that guests have come to expect from a hospitality provider. As a result, you will find a mixed bag of interpretation of these standards among your vacation rental clients.
Volume is a drug – just ask Walmart. When someone inquires about vacation rental laundry service, I’m both excited and cautious. After all, there are certain lodging hosts from which I’d much rather steer clear.
For instance, take the “OCD Host.” This is a person you may observe in your store pretreating every single item, for at least an hour or more. They usually have one set of sheets and towels for each bed and bathroom, respectively. And they treat those items as if they are paying to use them. Not a bad thing, but also not efficient. As drop-off or pickup/delivery customers, they will be the pickiest, expecting that same attention to their linens.
Then there’s the “Procrastinator Host.” They will call you with their hair on fire because they let the soiled linens sit in a vacant unit until the day before (or the day of!) the next tenant’s arrival. They then frantically request a two-hour turnaround. I can’t think of any professional hotel that operates in this manner.
As drop-off or pickup/delivery customers, it’s pretty obvious that these types of high-maintenance clients will stress you out! Their expectations could very well be unrealistic for a business that understands that time is money.
One customer called my personal phone requesting a pickup, a same-day turnaround and a discount… on my birthday, no less! (By the way, the answer to that specific request was an afternoon pickup by my driver, an overnight and a rush charge. I think I’ve finally got them trained.)
If your laundromat can accommodate these guests and you have the time and labor structure to service them on their terms, fantastic. No doubt, they will love you – but they may never learn.
Conversely, for those of us who prefer to operate more efficiently, pay attention to attendant productivity or face high labor costs (yeah, I’m looking at you, California!), we need to seek out the patronage of the more professional hosts, while politely informing the amateur operators of all the fine benefits of our self-service facility.
At my business, we typically keep our wash-dry-fold schedule one day ahead of the deadlines, for those times when we get busy and that day ahead gets pushed and becomes just “on time.” Clearly, receiving a last-minute, two-hour turnaround request can really throw us off, especially when we’re busy.
Our deadlines are our word, and we don’t break it. This is why we actually vet our vacation rental clients, seeking to work strictly with professionals who treat it like a business.
On occasion, this vetting process can segue into educating the client. In fact, sometimes I will (metaphorically, of course) sit a customer down to have “The Talk,” where I will explain the concept of Par 3.0 to them. That’s the magic number of sets of sheets that a hotel will have for each bed – one on the bed, one at the laundry and one on the shelf for those late-night accidents. When their eyes get big, I calm them down by explaining that not all of their beds require three sets, but they all must have at least two.
A host with the requisite two sets of sheets will have that second set ready for their cleaning staff when they turn over the property – make sure the soiled set gets to you immediately so that the system doesn’t break down. This should all but eliminate those frantic two-hour turnaround requests.
Better yet, what if all of the sheets were the same? Our favorite client has about 60 beds in approximately 20 units. They are all queen-sized beds, and all of the sheets and towels are white. Guess who never rushes us? This particular host runs a tight ship and employs a great crew of enthusiastic young people.
Furthermore, since the sheets and towels are interchangeable, their physical Par 2.0 acts like a Par 2.5, since there is always something on that shelf. In fact, their storage unit is fully stocked with all of the amenities and supplies for at least the next month. I love those guys – they bring in the laundry themselves, so it doesn’t ever sit. We just deliver it (only four blocks away) when we have enough that we need to get it out of our way – every single trip is profitable. And there’s no complaining.
One of the keys to the pickup/delivery vacation rental business is having access to the client’s secured central storage area, where the cleaning staff leave the soiled linens and you leave the clean linens. This way, you won’t have to rely on the staff members’ schedules or pace, which can vary greatly.
Another key regarding laundry that will change so many hands is inventory. The cleaning staff will require exactly what they need when turning over a rental unit. It’s at that time that any missing inventory will be discovered. In our experience, items typically go missing during a guest’s stay – sheets and towels may be accidently packed into luggage or thrown away after they are used to clean up a mess that guests wish to conceal. Since the laundry occurs off-site, you will usually be blamed, because I guess lost sheets and socks like to party together.
To mitigate this situation with certain clients, we conduct a piece count as the laundry is loaded into the washers, and then again before it’s bagged. Those counts are recorded on the invoices for future reference. Most clients also appreciate like-items being bagged together, rather than in sets. This also will help avoid any confusion.
Most vacation rental clients will fall somewhere between my favorite one and those we try to nudge toward our self-service business. We have found success in striving to elevate our new clients through some simple education on best practices that will help them improve on their own systems. This can actually raise that bar across your community towards that professional standard that their guests are seeking in the first place.
In fact, since our business is people and logistics, your laundromat can become a hub for knowledge and places you in a great position to share this type of advice with your clients. I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve been asked for a recommendation for a good, dependable cleaning person or crew.
The vacation rental laundry business – or any commercial laundry account, for that matter – is no different from any other relationship where compatibility is vital. It’s impossible to be all things to all people – just like in life. It’s up to you to know your core competencies and to stay within your niche.
As your business grows, you likely may add equipment and staffing to this area of expertise, so you need to know who you are and who you serve. Always attempt to set your clients’ expectations to be compatible with your own system so that you can offer them your best service.
Of course, none of this would be even remotely possible without the “greatest team in the country.” My attendants not only buy into these concepts, but they’ve refined them to the point of perfection. My team members know that, in seeking compatible clients, their day-to-day routines become more manageable and consistent – and that those out-of-the-blue, hair-on-fire surprises are kept to a minimum.
As a result, we can keep our word and achieve our mission of under-promising and over-delivering. They’ve earned a sense of pride by operating our system as part of the larger system of the business of vacation, as they too are part of the backbone of the experience of so many “holiday-makers.”
Cowabunga, dude!
