PAR (periodic automatic replacement) is a core concept in understanding a hotel or similar location’s linen and laundry needs. First determine how many linens are needed to fully stock each room and then how many are required to fully stock the property. Then determine the location’s ideal PAR level, with the standard being four times the linens required to supply each room. The optimal amount will vary by location and season.
The Basics of PAR
PAR stands for periodic automatic replacement and represents the total amount of linens needed to outfit one guest room, typically including one set of sheets and a comforter/duvet per bed, four pillows and covers, one mattress protector, four bath towels, four hand towels and four wash towels. A particular room’s needs may vary, depending on its size and the number of guests it’s expected to handle.
Normal PAR Levels
Experts often suggest that a hospitality business maintain a PAR level of at least four. This means a business can determine its ideal PAR level by multiplying the number of its guest rooms by the PAR of each room and then by four again.
This allows for four categories of linens: stored, in use, removed and to be laundered. Linens can cycle through these categories, allowing removal of dirtied linens and replacement with fresh linens on a sensible and timely schedule.
This isn’t necessarily optimal for every business. At locations with slow business, the PAR level may be kept lower without affecting the guest experience. At large, busy locations, even a PAR level higher than four may be optimal. It is best for management to pay attention to the typical needs of a location’s clientele and consult with staff responsible for replacing linens to identify a location’s best PAR level.
Making Needed Adjustments
A location’s optimal PAR level isn’t necessarily the same from month to month. Hospitality can be seasonal and some locations see much higher traffic around certain holidays and events. It’s best to maintain at least a PAR level of four during high-traffic times, but hotel staff may find they need even more linens, depending on the needs of their guests.
Likewise, some months’ business may be slow and a PAR level of four may be excessive. This doesn’t mean a business should get rid of its linens, but it may reduce the complexity of their business at no detriment to customers by removing some linens from use rotation, temporarily lowering their PAR level.
Why PAR Matters for Your Hotel
Understanding PAR allows a hotel to efficiently provide guests with the linens they need. For a hotel, motel or similar location, a room with dirty linens or too few linens can affect the customer experience in an industry where reviews and repeat business can make or break a location.
Overstocking may be a lesser issue, but it still means a business is keeping too many linens in rotation, paying more than it has to and increasing the complexity of their model without benefiting customers.
Potential Challenges
Predicting the optimal PAR level for a given year can be challenging, especially in the early days of a location where one may not have much hard data on customer traffic levels. If the ideal PAR level isn’t clear, it may be best to determine PAR for each room, acquire the linens required to maintain a PAR level of four and then adjust as necessary.
World events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, can also affect the ability of hospitality businesses to predict both necessary PAR levels and how to properly equip themselves, with the pandemic in particular slowing many stages of the supply chain. In the case of the pandemic, experts reported that business saw a large, unexpected spike after a significant downturn once vaccinations were approved and distributed. This created a significant supply-chain issue, which has since mostly stabilized.
How Alsco Can Manage PAR
PAR is a fundamental concept in hospitality that allows a company to predict its needs and make decisions on a schedule rather than in reaction to immediate problems. As a hotel ages and grows, it can develop a refined PAR level system, keeping the exact number of linens needed in rotation to provide the ideal guest experience without causing undue burden to employees or requiring excessive storage of materials.
If you’re interested in equipping your business with linens, Alsco can help. Our rental services can help your hotel keep the exact number of linens needed. Renting linens is not a burden if the amount you need fluctuates seasonally or even monthly.
Readers interested in this topic may also want to read about how hotels get their towels so white.
References
Keeping Your PAR Levels Up to Par. (October 2023). Questex.