Hotel staff caught cleaning toilet with towel

World
Europe

“We provide just the right quality service,” writes the official webpage of Ji Hotel. Yet the hotel will have to eat its words after a video captured its cleaner using a towel to clean the toilet seat.

The video footage circulated online was filmed on hidden cameras installed by a hotel guest in his room in Ji Hotel Jinan Quancheng Square located in Jinan, east China’s Shandong Province.

The video revealed that on Monday afternoon, a cleaner wiped the toilet, the sink and then the mirror with a used towel in the bathroom of room 8343.

The hotel staff cleans the toilet with a guest towel. /A still from Pearvideo

The video also recorded what happened the next day when the hotel guest asked the receptionist whether their cleaners used guest towels to do the cleaning.

The staff said that only five types of clothes were used for different areas of the hotel and that the towels were meant to be used exclusively by the guests. The staff also said that the towels were routinely cleaned and disinfected, as per the hotel policy.

The cleaner later told Pearvideo that the guest asked her to clean his room while she was cleaning other rooms and she panicked. “I was nervous. So I took the towel from the bathroom and used it.”

Yet, under the video post on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform, thousands of netizens expressed their disgust.

“I’m now afraid to stay in hotel. Too nasty,” @xiaochengxiaochengxiaoguniang wrote.

“You must bring your own towels. I even want to bring my bed sheet,” @butterflmeicheng commented.

The staff cleans the wash basin with a guest towel. /A still from Pearvideo

Amid mounting pressure from media and the online community, Ji Hotel announced on Thursday night that it has fired the cleaner and the manager while offering an apology on its official Weibo account.

"We carried out an in-depth investigation and found the employee had violated the hotel’s sanitary rules and procedures regarding cleaning. The employee has also admitted (to the same). Here, on behalf of Ji Hotel, we apologize to the guest and the public."

The hotel assured that it would strengthen the training and supervision of its staff.

Announcement by Ji Hotel /From Ji Hotel's Weibo account

However, some netizens point out that every hotel seems to have similar problems.

“I once worked at a hotel, a luxury hotel. It’s the same. Ji was just unlucky,” @Monee5656028697 said.

Ji Hotel Jinan Quancheng Square /A still from Pearvideo

Ji Hotel is a part of the Huazhu Hotels Group Ltd, a leading hotel chain in China with more than 2,700 hotels across 350 cities under its fold. In 2014, Huazhu was ranked the 12th largest hotel group globally.