Hoteliers' dirty little secret

Amancorp CEO Mihir Patel.

According to Amancorp CEO Mihir Patel, many Middle Eastern hotels share a perennial problem that is feared and foul, yet too often forgotten. Here he reveals the mould infestation issue, which has the potential to tarnish more than just physical property

Dubai hoteliers have a dirty little secret — indoor mould! This especially affects beachfront and marina hotels, and any property which is near to a large body of water. These, of course, make up the significant proportion of hotel room inventory in Dubai and the wider Gulf. The problem of mould infestation is perennial.

Most obvious in the hot and humid summer months, with a reprieve in the cooler four to six months of the year, mould is the subject of muted conversations and whispers among housekeepers and engineers. Mould is something that is greatly feared, never publicly acknowledged and often ignored internally, yet mould remediation is big business in our part of the world.

Story continues below

Despite being a recurrent annual problem, the solutions being employed currently are at best quick, temporary fixes and at worst, a waste of resources and money. The current economic downturn has further exacerbated the situation, as even those rare enlightened souls who acknowledge and understand the problem are restricted by owner’s representatives from taking the necessary action for a long term solution.

The result is many thousands of wasted man hours in cleaning — good old fashioned scrubbing of mould patches on walls and ceilings, deep cleaning of soft furnishings and for the more adventurous, duct cleaning. However, all this achieves is enrichment of the cleaning supplies, soft furnishing and duct cleaning companies.

In the equation, guests and employees alike continue to be exposed to the health risks that mould presents, whether visibly manifested or airborne spores, invisible to the naked eye. In the US, mould related lawsuits are now the new asbestos, providing lawyers with a rich vein of class action and consumer billing.

And in a region where we already suffer from some of the highest rates of asthma and breathing-related allergies in the world (according to the World Health Organisation), and where allergies are set to rise by as much as 70% over the next 25 years, mould — specifically airborne mould spores — present a real danger to general public health. At the first Middle East Asia Allergy Asthma Immunology Congress held last year in Dubai, the world’s leading allergy experts and doctors from around the region got together to discuss the extent of the health problem in the MENA region.

They estimated asthma and allergies cost the MENA region approximately $4.5 billion per year in direct financial costs and more alarmingly, numbers are expected to increase dramatically in the near future as a result of the region’s unique combination of rapid industrialisation (read construction), climatic conditions (heat and high humidity), year round dependence on central air conditioning, and ‘greenification’ (planting), as well as inherent genetic factors in the Arab population.

It was also noted that the availability of specialists treating these illnesses is currently decreasing by 15% per annum and there is common misdiagnosis of allergies — most people who have allergies don’t even know it! Yet airborne mould is one of the key asthma and allergy triggers in the GCC.