When the press release popped up in my inbox touting the country's first bedbug safety certification program for hotels and retailers, my first thought was, "Of course!"
It was only a matter of time, I thought. After all, an increasing number of products aimed at the growing problem are hitting the market. I even spotted an organic spray in an airport shop recently that claimed to be a bedbug repellent.
Unfortunately, if keeping bedbugs at bay were so easy, the problem would never have escalated to a point where travelers would have to worry about toting the suckers home in their suitcase.
So while I was almost as skeptical of the motives and reliability of any certification program as I was about an organic repellent, I jumped at the chance to talk with Mike Canizales, whose Boston-based Sniff K9 bedbug detection company has started the program with 10 members in the Boston area.
My first question was whether this certification constituted a guarantee. Absolutely not, he said, emphasizing there is no way to guarantee that a hotel or any establishment is free of the pests.
The program, he said, certifies that the businesses carrying the seal are following best-practice prevention strategies, including thorough training, education and monthly bedbug inspections.
His candor eased my skepticism. Still, I questioned the need for the program, knowing that reputable hotels have for years been taking this issue quite seriously. After all, the very heart of their business is at stake here.
I pointed out to him that I recently interviewed a pest control specialist and member of the New York bedbug prevention task force who told me that the hotel industry, which was among the sectors first hit by the resurgence of bedbugs, has become quite proactive. In fact, it has actually seen a downturn in the severity of infestations.
That specialist, Gil Bloom, president of Standard Pest Management in the New York borough of Queens, said most hotels and major chains have trained their staff to look for the bugs and have adopted simple programs like bagging sheets before they take them from the room to a laundry cart in the hall.
Many hotels, he said, employ monitor traps, while others use dogs to sniff out problems.
But Canizales said visual inspections are not sufficient. And he insisted that monthly inspections by bug-sniffing dogs are crucial.
"Most hotels do not have regular inspections of their rooms," he said. "They are doing it visually. Visually is about 30% less effective [than bedbug-sniffing dogs] because by the time you can find bedbugs in a hotel room, you have a major infestation. There is a chance that several days' worth of people have already been bitten and taken them home.
"If you rely on individual inspections as a way of monitoring this, that puts your guests at risk."
Canizales insisted he is not trying to "monetize" the problem. He said the certification carries no fees other than the cost of the monthly inspections and whatever other costs are associated with following best practices. And carrying the certification, he said, will bring more than enough business to offset those costs.
He said he has plans to expand the program nationally by working with other pest control companies to conduct the inspections. Again, he said, he will not charge a fee to companies with which he partners.
Administration costs, he said, will come out of his marketing budget, "because there is something in it for us: It's marketing for us."
Whether or not the program takes off remains to be seen. Canizales said his informal research of road warriors indicates that 96%, if given a choice, would book a hotel carrying his certification over an uncertified competitor.
Still, I can't help but be leery of any program that seems to capitalize on hysteria. And who really knows if the dog-sniffing inspections are accurate? Although experts say the dogs are 96% effective in sniffing out bedbugs, other reports indicate accuracy drops significantly if the dogs are not property trained or not used regularly.
That's not to suggest that Canizales' program is not effective and reputable. But assuming it is, and that it catches on, it could force hotels that already have effective plans in place to adopt a new, possibly unnecessary, inspection program to keep from becoming victims of hysteria.
The bedbug problem is real. And I am not trying to make light of people's serious concerns about the growing number of infestations. But publicity about the problem has fueled a market for ineffective products and in some cases even litigation. One hotel executive told me that hotels are starting to see cases where guests actually plant bedbugs in their rooms and then file a lawsuit.
If such a seal helps to allay the fears of the many travelers I know who are indeed quite concerned about bedbugs, great. I can also see it fueling more litigation, where guests who are bitten -- real, imagined or staged -- claim they were led to believe that the hotel was bug-free.
Although I usually do inspect the area around the mattress and bedding when I check into my hotel room, I personally am more concerned about picking up bedbugs in a movie theater, an airplane, clothing store or any of a number of places than in a reputable hotel.
And as Canizales said, certification or no, there are no guarantees.
So until researchers can come up with a safe alternative to the environmentally dangerous DDT pesticide that used to eradicate bedbugs, we are all at risk, whether at home or traveling.
For those who are really concerned about picking them up in hotels, such a certification, I suppose, at least offers peace of mind.
But I can't help but think that an even better form of assurance would be calling the hotel directly and asking them flat out how they deal with the problem.
Email Jeri Clausing at
jclausing@travelweekly.com.