Allergy Safe Hotels: A New Option if Your Travelling This Summer

I read an interesting article in USA Today from May 3rd titled, Hotelscourt allergy sufferers. I was surprised to learn that hotels offered special rooms for people that wanted a more hypoallergenic room. For years, I have heard my patients complain that their trip was ruined by getting sick from the dust, mold or overall poor air quality in hotel rooms when they traveled – even in the fanciest hotels. I think we can all agree that when it comes to allergies, NYC hotels are the last cause that comes to mind. I have, however, made recommendations that my patients with a severe dust mite allergy bring their own pillowcases and mattress covers and have the housekeeping staff put it over the bedding to decrease the chances of getting heavy dust mite exposure.

Now a company, Pure Solutions, is doing something about this problem. I called the CEO, Brian Brault because I wanted to find out what their company was doing that protected allergy sufferers from the common airborne allergens encountered in many hotel rooms. These are the steps his company takes to make the air in hotel rooms more amenable to allergy patients.

• Tea tree oil enzyme tablets are placed on the coils of the beds to prevent bacterial build-up
• Ozone treatments are done in the rooms to remove viruses and bacteria
• An air quality check is done to make sure once the room is treated there is no ozone detected in the air.
• Air Purifies are installed to circulate and clean the air of over 90% of mold and viruses.

The bottom line: the Pure Rooms have 90% fewer particle counts than comparable hotel rooms. This is impressive. Even to an allergy doctor of NY. Inside the rooms, they use fragrance and chemical-free products certified by Green Seal. They also have fragrance-free soaps, shampoos, and lotions on request. At this point, you are probably thinking, why don’t hotels do this to all the rooms – the answer, cost. However, the cost to the consumer is not exorbitant. For an extra twenty-five dollars you can get a hypoallergenic room, and hopefully, sleep with more confidence and more comfortably. There are now 5,000 rooms in 200 hotels worldwide including the Hyatt, Hilton and several other chain hotels.

Next on my wish list: Allergy Safe Airplanes. I’ll have to talk to Mr. Brault if they can expand into this market.

So, if you are concerned about the hygiene in your room, ask if they have pure rooms available.

Dr. Dean Mitchell
Mitchell Medical Group, NYC & Long Island