Hotel guests in Wuhan will soon be able to track the cleanliness of their linens.
QR code bed sheets may help hotel guests feel more at ease with hotel cleanliness. At least, this is the goal of a laundry service in China, which plans to embed towels, sheets, quilts and other hotel linens with a thin, heat- and water-resistant chip. Customers who scan this chip with their smartphone can track the cleanliness of the linens in their assigned room.
China is notoriously known for engaging in questionable cleaning practices in their hotels.
Some might think that having scannable QR code bed sheets and linens is a little overboard, but its more than hypochondriacs who worry about the sanitary of hotel rooms, and with good reason.
While just about every country in the world can be accused of having unsanitary hotel rooms somewhere in their nation, historically speaking, China is known for having some of the worst, including in their luxury hotels.
The Lonely Planet notes that back in 2017, the country’s tourism authority was forced to comment when an undercover video surfaced and revealed that staff at several Beijing luxury hotels were not scrubbing toilets or even replacing bed sheets between guests.
Worse still, in 2018, it was revealed that workers across 14 well-known properties in Beijing, Shanghai and several other Chinese provinces, were cleaning drinking glasses with the same sponges and towels used to clean the bathrooms.
Many people in China want to see the QR code bed sheet technology implemented nation-wide.
The city of Wuhan in the province of Hubei, will be the first to have these linens embedded with quick response codes. According to a news article from China’s state-run media outlet Xinhua, Wuhan’s first green washing base will reportedly implant the chips into the linens to provide those who scan it with relevant washing information.
The new technology is expected to be rolled out in October and is likely to be well received as the city has over 3,000 hotels, with the majority of these establishments using offsite laundry companies to handle the wash.
Interestingly, over 70% of respondents in an online pool said that they would like to see the technology implemented throughout China if the QR code bed sheets test should prove to be successful in Wuhan.
