Hospitality Industry vs. The Bed Bug
Are routine canine assisted bed bug inspections a good idea, or even necessary? In the hospitality industry it is all about the bed bug life cycle and their timeline to becoming a small infestation. Just suppose for a moment that 1 female adult bed bug hitchhiked her way into one of your rooms. She can lay up to 6 eggs a day for 5 to 7 weeks without the need for a male and each of those eggs will hatch in the next week to 10 days. Those eggs are now hatched and in the “nymph stage” and they will immediately start feeding on unsuspecting guests. A bed bug needs to feed 5 times and molt its exoskeleton between each of those feedings to reach adulthood. Each stage, or instar, takes between 5 to 8 days. So, at this point in the fight you still only have 1 fully grown female bed bug for 6 to 7 weeks after her initial introduction to your room. They do not become male or female until after their fifth feeding and this is where the problems really ramp up. So, 6 to 7 weeks after the initial introduction, you now have multiple females laying eggs daily and it is not hard for them to go undetected, since most people do not even have a reaction to bed bug bites. If they do have a reaction, the guest will likely think it from something else and go about their day. The only indication may be some small blood or fecal spotting on the sheets. But, in a hotel environment those sheets are changed and washed regularly, the spotting may go unnoticed.
Find Them First
Now that you have a tight knit family of several fully-grown bed bugs living in the room, maybe housekeeping will unknowingly take one of the new bugs out for a trip in the dirty sheets, in the vacuum, or perhaps for a ride on the laundry cart and will introduce that lucky bug into another room. The point is, if Pest Pups conducts regularly scheduled canine assisted bed bug inspections monthly, bi-monthly or at least quarterly, we are very likely to find the bed bug introduction before it even has a chance to become a small infestation, which makes it far less likely that a guest will find a bed bug before we do. The difference between that 7-week sweet spot and 90 days after an introduction can be 100’s of bed bugs and it only gets worse from there. At that point, a guest has definitely realized there are bed bugs in their room, asked for comps, a new room, dry cleaning, new luggage, or more.
The Dollars and Cents of Bed Bugs
The reputational risk is too great to not have a systematic, proactive prevention plan in action. In today’s online world it is far too easy for a guest to go to Trip Advisor, Yelp, or other social media platform and type as loudly as they can “BED BUGS”. According to a recent study from the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, one online bed bug complaint can lower your nightly room rate by $38 for business travelers and $23 for vacation travelers. As you can see, bed bug treatment costs are just one piece of the equation. According to the same University of Kentucky study, they found “that just one negative report of bed bugs on a travelers’ online review site can cost a 300-room hotel catering to business travelers $274,000 per month in revenue. When looking at a similarly sized hotel catering to vacation travelers, the costs approached $166,000 per month”. While these numbers are alarming, the cost of having Pest Pups perform regularly scheduled canine assisted inspections, in contrast, is a very economical way of showing your guests how much you care about their comfort and well-being during their stay. Pest Pups’ inspections and quick spot treatments can help to improve your customer satisfaction surveys, online reviews, and potentially increase your revenues and occupancy rates. Also, with our same day inspections, we do everything we can to keep your rooms in order or get them back in order very quickly.
