The importance of public hygiene : The Toilet factor
The volume and cleanliness of the toilets you have provided at your events are a reflection of the sucess or not of the event you have held. In addition to maintaining public health, providing enough toilets, and having them clean, re-inforces for the patronage their positive impression of the day and that you value their comfort and wellbeing.
Keeping everyone healthy & happy
As the old saying goes ‘The greatest wealth is health’, along with ‘Health is not valued until sickness comes’. Your visitors take for granted that you will keep them healthy at your event – it’s of highest value to them. This includes food, sun safety, hydration provisions, and toileting and hand washing facilities. It only takes one step in the chain of sanitation to make a whole host of people very ill…..and then it is no longer taken for granted as the finger pointing and the search for answers begins.
How? Unclean or insufficient toilets provided at any event act as a mode of transmission in your crowds. All it takes is one ill person to spread bacteria or viruses far and wide. If facilities are not cleaned, transmission is easily affected. If there are not enough toilets for the numbers of people attending, the problem is compounded and multiplied with numbers.
What can be done
Germs are everywhere, it is unrealisitic to expect to be able to eliminate them completely. There are some important and simple steps you can take when event planning to make sure public hygiene and sanitation is upheld. Providing sufficient toilets for expected crowds avoids overloading and also gives a chance for toilets to be cleaned between patrons by a toilet attendant, meaning that potential spread of pathogens is limited.
Toilet attendants help maintain cleaning throughout your event, keeping sanitation to high standards, and limiting the spread of germs.
Providing additional hand washing units (also available from Rent A Loo) increases the rates of visitors using hand washing facilities with an added bonus of turning over queues more quickly.
Your toilets can affect the reputation of your event
The success and positive experience with your event determines the profitability of it continuing and growing in years to come. It can be easy to overlook, but having enough clean toilets for your event can mean that patrons return, and recommend others come too. Just as long queues, and dirty facilities may do the opposite.
Word of mouth matters to your reputation, more so in these days of social media than ever before. Once when a visitor had a bad experience – you may expect the rule of 10 response. In this rule they will tell at least 10 people about this bad experience. The effect now is much more profound. With a quick vent on social media – hundreds, potentially even thousands will hear about it. That’s a whole lot of effect, and difficult to effectively counteract.
What is the solution?
Invest in your visitors comfort and hygiene. Ensure enough toilets are hired for predicted numbers. If possible over cater for these, a visitor to your event is never going to complain that they didn’t have to wait and that there were too many toilets. Consider additional hand washing stations, and look into having a toilet attendant attend to keep the toilets cleaned and stocked, keep everyone happy and of course, healthy.