Skip to content
MarketScale
‹ Back to IndustriesHospitality

Bringing a New Standard of Clean to Travel

In today’s podcast, I got to speak with Gonzalo Escorial, Global Key Account Manager in Travel and Tourism for SGS. SGS has been around for nearly 140 years, specializing in inspection, verification, testing and certification across many fields. This year, the company launched its Cleaning and Disinfection Verification Service, designed to bring a new level…

This story was produced through MarketScale. See how Hospitality teams put it to work with Executive Thought Leadership.

Share

Get featured

Want to get featured in MarketScale Hospitality?

Create a free MarketScale workspace and get your company's expertise featured across our Hospitality coverage. No credit card, no demo required.

Start free

In today’s podcast, I got to speak with Gonzalo Escorial, Global Key Account Manager in Travel and Tourism for SGS. SGS has been around for nearly 140 years, specializing in inspection, verification, testing and certification across many fields.

This year, the company launched its Cleaning and Disinfection Verification Service, designed to bring a new level of cleaning standards, protocols and maintenance to the hospitality industry.

In an industry where guests’ opinions really matter, hotels need to focus on consumer confidence, specifically by providing assurance and reassurance that where they are staying is safe.

Cleaning standards have been raised and, quite frankly, that is here to stay. But, more than that, the focus is also on creating a safe environment for those working in the hospitality industry. It is not solely about the guest, but the whole property.

As a result, SGS has sought to help the travel and hospitality industry by providing what it really needs—a third-party company to set protocols, verify cleanliness standards, and assist in maintaining these standards over time. The goal is to minimize risk as much as possible.

SGS is also working on a COVID-19 testing program for travelers where PCR or antigen tests can be performed so that people can prove they are allowed to travel.

Yet, with all of the changes we have seen this year, Gonzalo remains very optimistic. Knowing that the “new normal” will ultimately feel very familiar to the “old normal,” there will be more of a sensitivity to individuals.

SGS is certainly a company to keep an eye on moving forward. It is heavily focused on thinking outside of the box, as this pandemic has forced many of us to get creative. For SGS in particular, it will be about continuing to provide service by using more technology like remote assessments, virtual assessments, and more.

After all, if there is anything 2020 has taught us, it is that we all have to be adaptable and ready to evolve.

For more information on SGS, visit https://bit.ly/2UxOBdk or connect with the team at EHS.COVID19helpdesk@sgs.com.

Say Yes To Travel has a New Episode Every Thursday!

Your experts belong here

Every story in MarketScale Hospitality starts with a company putting its general managers, operations leads, and brand teams on the record. Buyers are already reading this topic. The only question is whose experts they find.

Owners and operators buy from people who understand the property, and your teams prove it in their own words.

Get your team featuredSee how it works15 minutes, straight to a calendar.

Follow Hospitality Insights

Get new expert content in your inbox.

Hospitality: are you visible to AI?

Before they reach out, Hospitality buyers ask AI engines which vendors to trust. Explore how your experts, customers, and partners can become useful content for buyers and AI search.

Free plan

You just read one Hospitality expert. Your company is full of them.

This article was produced through MarketScale. The same platform turns your general managers, operations leads, and brand teams into the articles, video, and social content Hospitality buyers are searching for. Create a free workspace and see it with your own people. No credit card, no demo required.

NPS +73 · 1,000+ creators · 38+ countries

What you get, free

Your own MarketScale workspace, up to 10 people
One professional video edit a month for qualifying companies
Media requests to your crowd, remote recording, AI writing tools
$0, no credit card, nothing that expires

More Hospitality Insights

If a competitor's move triggers your rate change, that is market-based pricing, not dynamic

If a competitor's move triggers your rate change, that is market-based pricing, not dynamic

Lighthouse writer Joe Hanly published a ten-strategy hotel revenue management guide on Hotel News Resource on September 8, ranking real-time dynamic pricing first. Its most useful content is a test: a hotel whose rate changes mostly follow a competitor's move is running market-based pricing, whatever it is called internally. A companion explainer says audit the compset and rate plans first.

  • 01Market-based and dynamic pricing both watch competitors; the line Lighthouse draws is whether a competitor's rate is the trigger or one input alongside local events, booking pace and market trends.
  • 02Properties that have gone years without a structured rate-plan review often carry more active plans than anyone tracks, and those legacy floor rates and stay restrictions sit under any pricing engine layered on top.

Sep 18, 2026

Summer 2025 was the weakest US hotel summer in four years, STR data shows

Summer 2025 was the weakest US hotel summer in four years, STR data shows

STR data show summer 2025 was the weakest U.S. hotel summer in four years: demand fell 1.4 million room nights and top 25 market weekday RevPAR dropped 2.3% in mid-August. Business travel plateaued while leisure held up. RevPAR growth returned across major hotel companies in Q1 2026, so 2025 is the comparison base for this year's results.

  • 01Weekday performance is the cleaner read on corporate demand: in the week ending Aug. 16, 2025, top 25 market weekday RevPAR fell 2.3% while non-metro and rural markets grew 0.7% for the full week, per STR.
  • 02The 2025 demand loss was concentrated, not spread evenly: STR traced 45% of the economy-class decline to 10 markets, with Houston and Las Vegas alone near a quarter of it, so a national average can hide a very different local picture.
  • 03The gap between occupancy on the books and occupancy actually realized, flagged by CoStar in Las Vegas, Houston, Philadelphia and Orlando in June 2025, is a sharper thing for a revenue manager to track than headline RevPAR.

Sep 18, 2026

Aimbridge's LIFT tool flags hotel staffing gaps before the financials do

Aimbridge's LIFT tool flags hotel staffing gaps before the financials do

Aimbridge Hospitality has rolled out LIFT, an in-house labor tool, portfolio-wide. It puts forecasting, scheduling and real-time execution in one view, and pilot hotels saw the largest productivity gains in housekeeping and laundry. For hotel owners, staffing misalignment now shows up before the monthly financials rather than after.

  • 01Hotel Business describes LIFT as a proprietary tool that Aimbridge has launched across its own portfolio, which turns labor analytics into a point of comparison between third-party operators.
  • 02Housekeeping and laundry were where pilot hotels saw the biggest productivity gains, which suggests demand-driven scheduling tools have the most room to act in departments where daily workload swings with occupancy.
  • 03Aimbridge has not published numeric pilot results; the signal to watch is whether it releases labor-cost or GOP flow-through figures from the full rollout, which would give owners a real benchmark.

Sep 17, 2026

Explore More Hospitality Insights

Read more expert perspectives from across Hospitality.

Browse Hospitality Hub

For B2B teams

Your experts could be publishing here

Stories like this one run on content MarketScale captures from real practitioners. See how your team's expertise becomes coverage in Hospitality and beyond.

Book a 15-minute demo

Or call us. No forms required. We pick up. 214-945-2512