FRONT OF HOUSE (MEETINGS AND CONFERENCE FACILITIES)
CONFERENCE WASHROOM PRIORITIES
What are the main points to consider when designing and equipping the washrooms of a conference centre or exhibition hall? Lee Radzki, from Tork manufacturer Essity, considers the question.
Conferences and exhibitions are high-pressure events. Most delegates will have a full agenda of meetings, workshops and receptions to attend. They will be greeting multiple people every day which will involve a great deal of hand-shaking. And they will want to look their best at all times, despite having little time to spare for themselves.
A visit to the washroom will need to be shoe-horned into a schedule that is already tightly-packed. It is therefore important that these facilities are up to scratch and that the experience is pleasant, comfortable and seamless.
So, what are the chief priorities to consider when equipping a conference centre washroom? The facilities should ideally be well-lit and provide good mirrors as well as shelves where items such as make-up, combs and hairbrushes may be put down.
Ample hand-washing facilities need to be provided to kill the germs exchanged with all those hand-shakes. The facilities should smell fresh and create a pleasant haven away from the busy conference hall.
Queues and logjams need to be prevented at all costs because a long wait to use the washroom will eat into the delegates’ valuable meeting time. But conference centre washrooms are likely to experience peaks of washroom traffic between workshop sessions, around lunchtime and just before the evening receptions begin.
These peaks are likely to put pressure on supplies of toilet paper, hand towels and soaps. When consumables run out,
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people will be forced to wait in line for those cubicles and sinks where supplies are still in place.
After a lengthy wait to use the loo, some visitors might be tempted to carry out a cursory hand wash so that they can hurry back to the conference floor. This could result in poor hygiene outcomes if these people then go on to meet and greet their cohorts with a handshake.
They might also leave behind messy sinks, running taps and discarded hand towels in their haste to leave the facilities. So the washroom experience will be less pleasant for subsequent visitors and this will result in dissatisfied end-users.
High capacity washroom dispensers that are designed to naturally reduce consumption will minimise the risk of dispensers running out between maintenance checks. All units should be quick to refill and easy to use to prevent queues and logjams. And they should be designed to reduce the risk of waste and mess.
Soap bars and bulk-fill soaps often result in sticky soap residues left behind on the basins while C-fold towels – which tend to come out of the dispenser in clumps – will lead to soggy discarded towels on the units and floors. Conventional toilet rolls may be contaminated before use or left on the floor to become soggy. Both these scenarios will lead to wastage and mess.
Tork OptiServe is a good solution because the coreless compact rolls provide three times more paper than
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