With a flurry of news reports about germs in airports and hotels, travelers have never been more concerned with cleanliness, and businesses have never been more concerned with traveler experience. NanoTouch Materials’ new self-cleaning surfaces address these traveler concerns. In just the first few months after moving to their new headquarters, The Center for Innovation in Smart Materials, NanoTouch has released a self-cleaning film for touch screens that can turn any airport check-in kiosk or in-flight screen into a continuously self-cleaning surface. They have also released self-cleaning elevator button covers.
These innovations add to their current lineup of travel products which include portable self-cleaning mats that the individual traveler can use on the airplane tray table or hotel bathroom vanity, and super durable self-cleaning mats for TSA security bins. This was the same product line that won the Innovation Award at last year’s ISSA Conference in Las Vegas.
The portable self-cleaning travel mat is one product that both vacation and business travelers seem to be clamoring for since it provides a cleaner place to rest a toothbrush, eyeglasses, medications or other personal items on a hotel bathroom vanity. And it provides a much cleaner place to rest your peanuts or pretzels on the airplane tray table.
But the product that generates the most excitement from the travel industry is the NanoSeptic self-cleaning mat for TSA security bins in airports.
After 6 months of testing by a regional TSA team, the NanoSeptic mats were sent to TSA’s national testing facility for verification. After TSA approval, the mats made their debut at the Akron-Canton airport, providing a cleaner surface for more than 1.4 million travelers per year.
NanoSeptic products are positively disrupting the travel and hospitality industry by getting businesses to look at cleanliness differently. Historically, hotels and other travel-related businesses took the approach of hiding their cleaning efforts. The old line of thought was that if people saw a facility taking steps to improve cleanliness, they might think the facility was dirty. But research has shown the opposite to be true. Travelers already assume the airplane, hotel or cruise ship is dirty. Furthermore, their purchase decisions can be directly affected by addressing hygiene issues and making clean visible. A NanoSeptic self-cleaning mat placed on the bathroom vanity of each room in a hotel has been shown to cause a “halo” effect, positively affecting a guest’s perception of the cleanliness of the room and the facility in general.
NanoSeptic self-cleaning products could also be a valuable part of a hotel, airline, cruise line, or credit card reward program.
