In a UK-first, Travelodge is introducing dedicated ‘Sleep Wardens’ to patrol its 383 UK hotels in a bid to help its 9 million customers get a good night’s sleep.

The specially-trained staff will start their duty at 8pm and work through the night, patrolling the hotel corridors and public areas in order to minimise any unwelcome noise that may disturb their guests’ sleep.  The Sleep Wardens will have the authority to issue a warning to anyone making a destructive noise in the hotel.  If the noise continues then the Sleep Warden also has the power to ask the customer(s) to leave the hotel immediately.

Leigh McCarron, Travelodge Sleep Director, said: “We know that noise is a major influence on the quality of a night’s sleep.  In response to this, our new Sleep Wardens are the very first guardians of a good night’s sleep.  Their special mission is to monitor noise levels and ensure our guests can sleep easy.”

The unique Sleep Warden service is part of the hotel’s £10 million investment in helping its customers sleep better whilst away from home. In addition to new noise abatement policies and re-organising delivery times at hotels to ensure minimum sleep interruption for customers, Travelodge is replacing hundreds of mattresses and duvets and introducing 81,000 new and improved pillows. 

Travelodge’s ‘Sleep Manifesto’ follows research which highlights the UK’s soaring ‘sleep debt’ of 29 billion hours. The ‘Travelodge Sleep Index’, based on the sleep patterns of 6,000 adults, revealed the average Briton is getting just six hours and twenty one minutes sleep per night - well below the recommended sleep quota of eight hours. The research highlighted that on average adults are getting 51 minutes less sleep than in 2008, when the national ‘sleep debt’ stood at 14 billion hours[ii].       

The current sleep shortfall is estimated to be costing employers around £1 billion per year, as 8 million sick days[iii] are taken as result of a bad night’s sleep compared to 3.4 million sick days in 2008.

More than half of those surveyed (56 per cent) said they feel like they have a bad hangover when they have not had enough sleep and 45 per cent said it takes them a couple of days to recover.

The Travelodge Sleep Index also revealed:

  * 54 per cent of adults blame a lack of sleep for their inability to concentrate at work
  * Nearly half (47 per cent) of respondents admitted to taking longer to complete tasks at work
  * A third of those surveyed said they find it difficult to concentrate driving to and from work when they have not had enough sleep
  * Seven out 10 adults admitted they are a ‘horrible person’ to be around when they have not had enough sleep and difficult to work with

The desire to catch up on much-needed sleep is so great that a quarter of adults admitted to taking a sneaky catnap at work, with 16 per cent dozing at their desk and 10 per cent even retreating to the toilets for forty winks.

According to the study, the top three causes of sleep deprivation are money worries (38 per cent), work-related stress (25 per cent) and noisy family members or neighbours (23 per cent)