How Sand Hotel let guests choose, and 82% skipped stayover cleaning

OPERATIONS

Sand Hotel, a four-star Keahotels property in central Reykjavík, moved from printed lists and WhatsApp to Sweeply. It then let guests choose their own housekeeping from their phones. The result: most stayover cleans are now ones guests actually want.

Why it matters: Once guests could choose their housekeeping on their own phones, 82% of stayover nights in October 2026 needed no service. That frees about three quarters of a part-time role at full occupancy, in a country with some of the highest operating costs in Europe.

Sweeply syncs with the Keahotels PMS, so departures and room statuses flow in automatically and each day's rooms are assigned to the housekeepers on shift. Housekeepers see checkouts on their phones, time each clean and send rooms to inspection, while reception sees every room's status live. With Sweeply Guest Connect, guests choose how often their room is cleaned from the pre-arrival email or their room, and every choice becomes a housekeeping task.

Top 3 Core Objectives: Sand Hotel had to keep its team lean while holding four-star standards, at some of the highest operating costs in Europe. But housekeeping ran on printed lists and WhatsApp, so nobody could see or measure the work.

Live room status: Reception had to keep asking whether rooms were ready, and guests waited. Rooms were released one WhatsApp message at a time.
Fewer interruptions: Every message meant a housekeeper stopping work in one room to deal with another, so the team kept losing momentum.
Decisions based on data: Managers had no reliable way to measure progress or performance, so every change was an experiment. "It's just guessing in the end."

Innovators Mentioned

Sweeply

Sævar Snorrason

General Manager

Sand Hotel by Keahotels

"We want them to just have the time and ability to control their experience from start to finish."

Sævar Snorrason

General Manager

👍 General Manager Sævar Snorrason said that Letting guests choose their own housekeeping puts them in charge of their stay and matches cleaning to what they actually want.:

"We want them to just have the time and ability to control their experience from start to finish."

⚖️ The selection process: During their research process, Sævar Snorrason evaluated Sweeply's product differentiators, customer support, and holistic value as a strategic partner and ultimately decided that Sweeply was the best fit solution:

General Manager Sævar Snorrason said, about their decision: "In regards to the deciding factor , as when I started we had the beloved pronto version. So its always been a part of my journey at Kea, however the deciding factor for the guest connect part was simple, increased service level, people don't have to wait for the receptionist to get to the phone to answer or potentially wait in line to simply relay a basic request. They are of course welcome to, but they don't have to."

📈 The results: Once guests could choose their housekeeping on their phones with Sweeply Guest Connect, stayover nights with no service rose from 36 to 46% to a 72% summer average, and 82% in October 2026. Staffing now fits the real workload.

About three quarters of a part-time role freed at full occupancy. The cleans guests now skip balance the workload, and "nobody's overworked."
About 80% fewer chat messages between housekeeping and reception. Automated status updates replace manual room releases, which removes a whole class of human error.
A time standard for each of the eight room types, built from timed cleans, so shifts are planned on data instead of guesswork. Guests get exactly the service they ask for, with less water, chemicals and linen used on cleans nobody wanted.