The Textile Services Association (TSA) Congress in Southampton, 5 February, was opened by Charlie Betteridge, chair of the Association. It was the largest TSA Congress ever, he told delegates at the salubrious Southampton Harbour Hotel, where 33 laundry companies were represented by their owners, managing directors and CEOs.
As well as interesting and informative papers from various experts there was plenty of time set aside for informal chats and networking. The event was crowned with a much-anticipated appearance by Harry Redknapp, England footballing legend, who proved himself a talented raconteur and teller of humorous and scurrilous tales.
TSA CEO David Stevens stepped on to the stage after Betteridge’s welcome to say: “We’ve arranged some excellent speakers for you today, and it’s great to see that over 80% of attendees are nonsuppliers.” Which, of course offered added value for the Premium Supplier sponsors – ABS, Christeyns, Ecolab, Jensen, Kannegiesser, Richard Haworth, Tonrose, vision, and WSI.
Stevens extended thanks to the Premium suppliers for their continued support, saying: “Your contribution is invaluable and much appreciated.”
Stevens went on to outline the TSA training programme for this year which includes an impressive number of workshops, seminars, webinars and events, testament to the Association’s commitment to best practice at all levels. Programmes include Health & Safety; Sustainability; Laundry Open Week, PUWER safety inspections training; and Microbiology among others.
Full GLARE
Stevens also announced the launch of GLARE (Global Laundry and Rental Emissions Platform), a carbon calculation tool, which has been designed to help commercial laundries in the UK – and around the world – measure their carbon footprint.
This will enable laundry businesses to meet their carbon reporting requirements and will play a vital role in the TSA’s roadmap for the laundry industry to meet its targets for carbon reduction by 2045, well ahead of the UK Government’s commitment to achieve this goal by 2050.
Stevens ointeed out that UK PLC has already made some significant inroads in reducing its carbon emissions, with a total reduction of 9.3% since 2019 and 3.5% of that occurring after 2021.
GLARE is based on the Green House Gas protocol to allow the laundry industry to record and track carbon emissions using the well-established methodology. Measuring the carbon emissions will then enable the users of the platform to report and implement effective carbon reduction plans. As with any new project, GLARE will be an iterative process, with its accuracy increasing over time as more companies use it.
“It’s difficult to overstate the importance of GLARE to the industry over the next couple of decades,” said Stevens. “It’s been designed to be useful to the entire industry, so we took time to make sure it met the needs of everyone from SMEs to the largest players.
“It’s also being supported by our international partners in Europe and the US, enabling a truly global level playing field in terms of recording the progress the industry makes as it continues towards meeting its Net Zero targets.”
Hospitality in numbers
Congress heard Ryandeep Bains, business development manager at STR, a leading specialist in data benchmarking, analytics and marketplace insights for the global hospitality industry, made an encouraging presentation.
Bains leads STR’s Industry Partner Business Development work in the UK and Ireland and is focused on scaling the benchmark product across Europe.
His paper, ‘Hospitality in Numbers’, was an eye-opener. The UK and Ireland is top of the charts across the whole of Europe for room occupancy. According to Bains the middle market generally is not moving but top end and budget hotels are booming, realising 102% occupancy rates. Occupancy has returned to pre-2019 levels across the whole year of 2024.
Globally, he said, occupancy rates continue to impress. In 2024 the price of a room in the US and in Europe were equal as rates continued to climb last year. European demand remains in positive territory (just), he said, and the higher the class the higher the RevPAR growth. Things are pretty much back to 2019 occupancies in PIIGs countries with UK and Ireland doing particularly well. Meanwhile, ADR growth in Europe is dwarfed by the Mediterranean markets.
On to news delegates at the Congress were pleased to hear which was that the UK is in a privileged position. Throughout (most of) 2024, the UK was selling more rooms than last year with occupancy at 78% with the highest occupancy of G20 countries over the full 12 months of 2024. Luxury and budget hotels are the growth areas and there is plenty of supply for more in UK and Ireland. Ireland is particularly successful in the luxury sector, said Bains, causing one Congress delegate to quip:
“I should have opened a luxury hotel in Ireland instead of a laundry.”
Jumpers for goalposts
TSA keynote speaker, the legendary footballer and now TV personality, Harry Redknapp, was absolutely hilarious, holding his audience enraptured with his football stories. He thinks players are no better today than their illustrious predecessors like Jimmy Greaves, Bill Nicholson, Pelé (whom he idolised), Bobby Moore, Frank Lampard – so many names, and he knew them all. “No”, he said “pitches are better, boots are better and coaches are better.” He also thinks players get paid too much nowadays but said: “You can’t blame them. If you were offered it, you would take it, wouldn’t you?”
He talked about growing up in hard times in London and, after becoming a pro, still playing football in the park with jumpers for goalposts, albeit with his well-known team mates, including Bobby Moore (who he first met at 15 when paying alongside him in West Ham youth team.) Was Redknapp actually the inspiration for Paul Whitehouse’s Ron Manager character in BBC’s ‘The Fast Show’?
Well, Harry Redknapp may be the best manager England never had, but he is definitely one of the best speakers – all off- the-cuff, no notes – for the inspirational spot at a conference. He can really lift a room. The applause at the end of his speech was witness to that. Much kudos to the TSA for booking him.
Powerful words
Another keynote speaker to take to the podium was Mohammed Qahtani, who told of his struggles to overcome a stutter in his early years before beating that to become the first Muslim, the first Arab and the first Saudi to win the Toastmasters International Speech Contest in seven rounds and in a field that included 33,000 competitors from around the world. He urged managers to say ‘Well done’ to employees and colleagues, probably the most powerful words in the work context, he said.
Hatch Report lands
The TSA has sponsored a new Hatch Report (two years on from the last one) and released it at the Congress, showing the economic value of the textile services sector to the UK economy. According to presenter Tim Fanning, a director at Hatch, the sector’s direct economic contribution amounted to 22,000 jobs, £1.6 billion sales which in turn generate £1.1 billion gross value added and a £130 million Exchequer contribution.
Consider also, he said, on a weekly basis more than 53 million textile items are processed by textile care services in the UK. At peak, up to 75 million textile items are processed a week.
The sector’s indirect and induced contribution bfreaks down as £450million in UK supply chain expenditure with £600 million spent on wages and salaries, which in turn translates to 5,800 jobs, £680 million in GVA and £120 million Exchequer contributions.
In summary, the combination of direct and indirect & induced GVA is £1.8 billion; FTE jobs combining direct and indirect & induced figures amounts to 27,800 FTEs, and; total contributions to the Exchequer total £250 million.
This is not small beer and as a tool for lobbying Government, this report makes it clear how important the industry is to the country’s economy.
Fanning used NHS hospitals as an example of just one sector that would face disaster without laundries. ointing out that:
- Hospitals use stock quickly. Contaminated linens quickly fill bins and aren’t take away. Linens are used up as they become spoiled by patients.
- Hospitals can no longer provide clean beds. Patients can’t be admitted. Spare linen is prioritised for urgent care. No routine surgery can take place. Risk of infection grows.
- Hospitals turn to disposable garments but cannot meet the quantity needed. Only the most urgent care can be provided.
- There are around 45,000 hospital admissions each day.
- 143,000 patients need to stay overnight in NHS hospitals.
- There are 7.64 million people on waiting lists for routine surgery. Many of these individuals would not be able to access care.
The report also showed the increase in laundry running costs since the last report two years ago. From 11.29% to 26.58%..The report is available for the TSA.
