How clean is your hotel bedding?

Good-quality, clean bedding in a hotel is key to getting a good night's sleep. So how often do hotels change their bedding and how will you know it's clean?

First, let's take a quick look at the two main types of bedding used in hotels: Egyptian cotton and Tencel. What's the difference?

• Egyptian cotton is the most prevalent, providing comfort and strength of the highest quality from natural products.
• Tencel is composed of man-made fibres and provides relaxation from renewable sources.

Whether Egyptian cotton or Tencel, proper hygiene is critical for peace-of-mind stay during your stay. There's a common misconception that hotels change the linen on a daily basis, but that’s no longer the case (except during a change in occupancy).

Some hotels may change the linens every three days, other may change it upon the guest's request. The policy varies between hotel chains.

This change in policy is due to two factors: It reduces the environmental impact in washing linen daily and allows hotels to save money that can be spent improving amenities.

Although changing linens daily can ensure guests they are sleeping in entirely clean sheets, free from foreign bodies like bed bugs, or crumbs from snack foods, etc., it does have a huge cost, both monetarily and environmentally, resulting in a massive carbon footprint.

In recent years, some hotels have begun applying sticky notes to bed headboards that read “Duvet covers and sheets are clean for your arrival.” One frequent traveller commented on this new practise, saying "One never knows if the duvet or bedspread is cleaned after each guest checks out , but a note like this tells the story."

If your stay is prolonged—several weeks—some experts recommend the hotel change the sheets and linens once a week. The hotel bed and linens will still feel and smell clean, and your bed will be ready-made for you each evening.

When staying in a hotel, hygiene is an important topic, and rightly so. Perspiration, dirt, and certain skin conditions that can be transferred through contact with unclean bedding are what you want to avoid.

Much like you don't go to a restaurant expecting your food to arrive with a bite taken out; or clothes that you buy from a store to be dirty; neither should the sheets on your bed be used when you arrive. Like everything else, paying for a hotel room is a service, and you deserve your money's worth.

Always check online reviews before booking a place to stay.