COVID-19 has affected every sector across the globe, and the hospitality industry is among the hardest hit.
Research* suggests that recovery to pre-COVID-19 levels could take until 2023—or later and like so many industries, hospitality will also see both subtle and substantial changes in the post-pandemic era.
The consumer is embracing the need for safeguards while travelling, staying in hotels, and eating in restaurants. On the list of things that will make them feel pandemic-safe, are contactless check-ins and check-outs, smart-phone ordering at tables, masks, and visors and critically, robust hygiene protocols. After the kitchens or food delivery areas, it is in bathrooms, washrooms and WC’s that consumers will judge whether an establishment has taken hygienic safety seriously. Businesses that can highlight both stringent procedures and the best in hygienic bathroom design will be in the best position to get back to pre-pandemic trading.
Specifying Bathroom Confidence for Customers
Throughout the COVID crisis, VitrA products have been available and fully supported an essential consideration for bathroom specifiers that need products that are proven and backed up with full service along with spares in this intensely hard-working sector. VitrA is recognised as one of the most innovative manufacturers of complete bathroom solutions and is exceptionally well equipped to help hoteliers and restaurateurs meet the many challenges that COVID-19 has created. Whether that be reducing touch-points with no contact flushing and water delivery or guarding against virus and bacteria build-up with special finishes on ceramic ware and tiles, VitrA can create bathrooms that are both safe and design led.
What Gives a Bathroom User Confidence?
Confidence comes from reducing touch points and from the human senses, feel, smell, sight, and sound. Not only does the bathroom need to look and be clean, but an ambient aroma of a clean smell is confidence giving also. Reducing physical contact is essential. Quick, quiet no-touch flushing on WCs, responsive no-contact basin taps that turn off as quickly as they turn on and all without the need for physical touch are reassuring to visitors.
Speed of Cleaning Saves Times and Money.
Cleaning protocols are likely to add time and money to housekeeping budgets. With due consideration and compelling design meeting, the COVID cleaning procedures can be made quick, easy and reduce room turnaround. Wall-hung WCs and bathroom furniture speed up the daily housekeeping routine, by making it easier to reach the hard-to-reach areas. Tiled walls and floors are easy and straightforward to clean as there are no skirting boards.
Tiles with a built-in antibacterial like VitrA Shield offer a valuable back up to cleaning. On all WCs and basins, VitrA adds a unique glaze to reduce the growth of bacteria and limescale, this VitrA Hygiene glaze is available as standard on all ceramic sanitary ware products.
In addition VitrA Clean coating is available on several ceramic basins, vanity basin tops and WC products. The coating increases the surface tension, ensuring the water flows smoothly from the surface. All that is required to keep the basin clean is a wipe with a damp cloth and mild detergent.
The rim around a conventional toilet pan is the place where water enters and is usually open, creating the perfect place for bacteria and limescale to accumulate. VitrA’s Rim-Ex technology offers the latest in WC bowl design. With a rimless, smooth internal pan, there is no hiding place for bacteria to multiply and limescale to build-up. Rim-Ex ensures the best in hygiene and offers the added benefit of speeding up cleaning time. Tests undertaken by Akdeniz University, in Turkey, prove that Rim-Ex is 95% more hygienic than a standard WC pan.
VitrA RimEx technology eliminates the rim on a WC, making it far more hygienic and faster to clean.
The VitrA Fresh WC pan features an integral tank that dispenses detergent with every flush and is available with the M-Line series. The detergent tank sits on top of the pan, behind the seat, concealed by a removable lid, so refilling is easy. Most commercially available non-abrasive toilet cleaning products can be used in the tank to support regular cleaning.
VitrA Fresh dispenses detergent with every flush.
Helping Visitors Keep Safe
Thorough and frequent hand washing is a significant part of the battle against COVID 19. Creating a no-touch experience for handwashing is crucial in the fight against infections.
VitrA Aquatech no-touch basin mixer taps are activated by infra-red, a simple wave of a hand starts and stops the water flow. Available in single hole monobloc versions for use with a one-hole basin and as a tall deck mount to use with a vessel basin. The taps are easy to use, water-saving and have full WRAS approval pending.
VitrA Aquatech no-touch basin mixers are simple to use with a wave of the hand.
VitrA Smart Panel is just one of a host of no-touch flush plates available. Using a concealed frame and flush plate removes the need for visible pipes and valves – all of which can accumulate dust. Specified in conjunction with a wall-hung (clear of the floor) WC and in-wall frame to create a secure, safe, and hygienic WC facility that makes cleaning easy and fast and means the user need never touch the unit. The VitrA Smart Panel can be linked to an App and controlled by either the user or housekeeping staff to flush and adjust flow rates remotely.
VitrA’s Aquacare WC’s incorporate a built-in bidet function recognised as offering superior hygiene and comfort for enhanced personal care. Aquacare is a bidet and WC in one that offers extra hygiene for users, and easy cleaning for housekeeping thanks to its no-rim RimEx design. Aquacare is available in the Sento, M-Line and Integra ranges and is compatible with EN1717 as well as LGA and DVGW certified – to comply with all regulations that protect drinking water.
VitrA Sento wall-hung WC hung pan showing VitrA Aquacare in action.
The aerosol effect where viruses and bacteria are carried in invisible drops of water from flushing has always been a concern for both WCs and urinals. With the V-Care WC with the automatic self-closing WC seat and no-touch flush plates, VitrA’s WCs help to minimise this problem.
VitrA V-Care is a multi-function touch-free and rimless WC that offers impressive features—designed by German studio Noa. VitrA’s V-Care is a wall hung WC and offers a range of features by model. These include a sensor that whilst energy saving also opens the lid as the user approaches, adjusts washing and drying functions, and controls both the heated seat and automatic air purification. The integrated shower function puts an end to the need for toilet paper (an environmental benefit). It can be activated at the touch of a button on the remote control, which is intuitive and very easy to use. The remote can also be used to control the temperature of the ergonomic heated seat.
V-Care can be integrated into the most hard-working of contemporary bathrooms to provide consumers with a superior cleanse and without the need for toilet paper.