Make every room ready every day, because you cannot know which room the LQA assessor will get. LQA recommends a minimum of 2 assessments each year. Each assessment is typically 1 to 3 nights, and no staff know who the assessor is. Supervisors often inspect only about 10% of rooms. To close this gap, record each finished room with photos or a short video. Then examine every record on the same day.
This guide is for rooms directors, quality managers and general managers at luxury hotels that use LQA. It tells you what the LQA method means for housekeeping. It also gives you a daily routine that makes the full house ready, not only a sample of it.
How an LQA assessment works for housekeeping
Leading Quality Assurance (LQA) is an independent company that assesses luxury hotels. According to LQA (lqagroup.com), it works with luxury hotels in more than 130 countries. Our guide what is an LQA audit gives the full background. This section gives only the facts that change how a housekeeping team works.
| Topic | What LQA says | What it means for your rooms |
|---|---|---|
| Who comes | An assessor who stays as a regular guest. No staff know who the assessor is. | Nobody can prepare a special room. The assessor gets a room from the full house. |
| How long | Typically 1 night to 3 nights. The time changes with the size and needs of the hotel. | In a stay of 2 or 3 nights, the assessor also sees the room after your daily service. |
| How often | A minimum of 2 assessments each year. The frequency depends on the goals of the hotel. | Your team cannot tell which nights the assessor is in the house. Each night can be an assessment night. |
| What is scored | More than 1,000 luxury standards. 117 are housekeeping standards, about cleanliness and attention to detail. | Small misses in the room cost standards: a stain, a dirty control, a mark on a wall. |
| Evidence | The report can include photographs of room conditions and presentation standards. | The assessor keeps a record of the room. Your team needs a record of every room too. |
Why a 10% sample does not protect you
Most hotels do not inspect every room. According to OpsAnalitica (opsanalitica.com), a company that sells hotel inspection software, housekeeping supervisors often only have time to inspect 10% of rooms. A 2021 article in Hospitality Technology (hospitalitytech.com) also says that 10 percent is a typical sample size. Our hotel room inspection statistics page has more data on inspection coverage.
One day, 10% sample
If the sample is random, the chance that a supervisor inspected the assessor's room is about 1 in 10.
Here is an illustrative example. A hotel has 120 rooms ready for arrival today. At a 10% sample, supervisors inspect about 12 rooms. The other 108 rooms go to guests with no inspection. The assessor can get any one of them.
A supervisor sample is a good tool to coach attendants. It is not a tool that makes every room ready. The assessor gets a room from the full house, not from your sample. To be ready for an assessor that you cannot see, you must see every room.
What the assessor looks for in the room
LQA also scores its standards in performance criteria. According to LQA, two criteria are about the physical room:
- Cleanliness: up to 69 standards. LQA gives two examples: furniture that is free of stains, and TV controls that are clean and that operate correctly.
- Product: up to 180 standards about the physical environment. LQA gives two examples: wall surfaces and clean windows.
Many of these items are visible. Some are not. The table shows which items a photo or a short video can show, and which items need a test in the room.
| Item from the LQA examples | A photo or video shows it | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Stain on furniture | Yes | Include the sofa, the chairs and the headboard in the photo set. |
| Mark on a wall surface | Yes | Scuffs and holes show well in a wide angle of each wall. |
| Dirty TV control | If in frame | Put the control in the same place in each room, inside the frame. |
| Dirty window | Partly | Marks show when light comes through the glass. Light film can stay hidden. |
| TV control that operates | No | A test in the room is necessary. This is a job for a supervisor. |
Thus, a photo record does not replace all checks in the room. It finds the visible misses in every room. Supervisors can then use their time on the tests that a camera cannot do, such as the TV, the lights and the room temperature controls.
A daily routine for an LQA-ready house
This routine uses the photos and video that many housekeeping teams already take. It does not add a second inspection. It changes which rooms your supervisors go to.
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Record every room when the attendant finishes it
Use a fixed set of photos or one short video. Use the same angles in each room. Include the bed, the bathroom, the desk, the floor, the furniture and the TV area.
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Record stay-over rooms, not only arrival rooms
The assessor can stay up to 3 nights. After the first night, the assessor sees a stay-over room after your daily service. Record each stay-over room after service, the same as an arrival room. If your hotel does a turndown service, record the room after turndown too.
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Examine every record on the same day
A supervisor cannot read hundreds of photos each day. RapidEye can. You send the photos and video to RapidEye. RapidEye's AI platform analyzes each record and returns findings: missed cleaning, damage, missing items and setup that is not to standard.
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Send supervisors to the rooms with findings
Supervisors go to the rooms on the list and correct the problem before the guest arrives. They also do the tests that a photo cannot do. Our guide on how to inspect more hotel rooms without more supervisors gives the full coverage model.
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Add your LQA results to the photo set
The LQA report shows the top missed standards for your hotel. If a missed standard is visible, add an angle that shows it. Then each record checks that standard in every room, every day.
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Watch the trend between assessments
With 2 assessments each year, you get few LQA reports. Your own records show misses every day, by attendant, by room and by type. Use this trend to train the team before the next assessor arrives.
Quick FAQ
How does an LQA assessment work?
An assessor from Leading Quality Assurance (LQA) stays at the hotel as a regular guest. No staff know who the assessor is. The stay is typically 1 to 3 nights. The assessor scores the hotel against more than 1,000 luxury standards. After the assessment, the hotel gets a detailed report and a debrief from the assessor. For the full background, read what is an LQA audit.
How often should a hotel have an LQA assessment?
LQA recommends a minimum of 2 assessments each year. LQA says that the frequency depends on the goals of the hotel. At that minimum, with stays of 1 to 3 nights, the assessor is in the hotel on 2 to 6 nights each year. Your staff cannot tell which nights.
How many LQA standards are about housekeeping?
117 of the more than 1,000 LQA standards are housekeeping standards, according to LQA. The cleanliness criterion has up to 69 standards. LQA gives two examples: furniture that is free of stains, and TV controls that are clean and that operate correctly.
How do you keep every room ready for an LQA assessment?
Record every finished room with a fixed set of photos or one short video. Examine every record on the same day. Send supervisors to the rooms that have a problem. Record stay-over rooms too, because the assessor can stay up to 3 nights.
Can photos replace a supervisor inspection for LQA?
No. A photo record shows the visible misses in every room. Some LQA standards need a test, for example a TV control that must operate. Supervisors still do those tests. The photo record tells them which rooms need them first.
Sources
Sources are named at the publisher level with their root domain, rather than linked or titled; every figure is verifiable at the named source.
- Hotel assessment and company pages, Leading Quality Assurance (LQA)lqagroup.com
- Hotel industry page, OpsAnaliticaopsanalitica.com
- Article on hotel room cleanliness checks, Hospitality Technology, 2021hospitalitytech.com