TRAVERSE CITY — Summer is coming and for Traverse City that means the tourists are too. Many jobs at resorts can go unnoticed because you don’t always get to put a name to the face.
The winter months give housekeepers like Amanda Harvey a bit of a break. However, the summer months constantly keep Harvey and staff occupied all day. Tamarack Lodge has condos and those units take longer to clean.
“It’s a lot in the summer, a lot of times, like, oh, you flipped the building yesterday, two days later, do it again,” said Amanda Harvey, Housekeeping Supervisor, “So the entire hotel has about 30 rooms, and some days you’ll have a day where you’re flipping every single room over. So, in the winter, you might only have four rooms all day, and then you’re clocking out at like 1:30-2:00 when I have to turn the whole building over. We’re here from like 8:30 to about 5:30, if we’re lucky.”
All rooms have a full kitchen, living room, bathroom and sometimes extra bedrooms. Even if you don’t touch the dishes or the furniture everything gets wiped down. The goal is to only spend an hour on each room, but that depends on how guests leave it.
“If you like, barely touched anything. It’s not going to take me very long,” Harvey said. “I’ll do touch-ups here and there. I’ll sanitize… if you had a party, if you have little kids in here, if there’s yogurt all over the wall and spaghetti in my microwave…I’ll have to take a little extra elbow grease to get some of those stains off.”
According to a study in 2022 by Traverse City Tourism, more than 7 million people visit Traverse City every year. This brings in about 1$.4 billion to the area.
“It obviously that is it plays a big role in our town,” Kyle Butts said. “And I think that, that it’s, it’s an important piece to, to, to, the area and with all the guests that come from all over.”
Harvey asks guests to be kind when housekeepers make mistakes because they will want to fix them.
“We all come in here and we do our best, and we do our best to make the rooms look perfect. And what you’re paying for it absolutely every time. But that doesn’t mean, again, we’re not robots. We are human beings. If I miss something, please don’t just rip us apart. Just let us know, we are more than happy to come fix it. We are more than happy to accommodate you.”