Albufeira is the municipality with the highest concentration of tourist accommodation in the Algarve: more than seven thousand registered holiday rental units, plus hotels, and second place in the region for overnight stays.
That means the overwhelming majority of the air conditioning in this area does not serve whoever pays for it — it serves whoever sleeps there for a week and writes about it afterwards.
Why air conditioning shows up in reviews
An analysis of more than two and a half million online reviews, across almost six thousand hotels in twenty cities, identified smells and air conditioning among the categories with the most negative mentions. Complaints about air conditioning appeared in twice as many reviews as problems with internet.
The mechanism happens in the first thirty seconds of a stay. The guest comes in, switches on the air conditioning and smells damp. From then on, the visible cleanliness of the room stops counting, because the first impression has already been made by the sense of smell — and it is the one that gets written down.
It is an entirely avoidable problem with scheduled servicing, and one of the few whose absence nobody praises but whose presence everyone comments on.
Volume, and why low season is not negotiable
A hotel in Albufeira typically has between fifty and several hundred indoor units. A holiday complex or a block of holiday rental apartments has dozens.
In July and August there is no window. Rooms are occupied, occupancy does not allow wings to be taken out of service, and any work is done in a rush between a departure and an arrival. The result is a superficial clean, which is the same as not cleaning.
From October to March is when you plan by wing, by floor or by block, with time to open each unit properly. It is also when we have availability to do it.
Fixing the calendar months in advance is literally the difference between the work being done well or not.
How a high-volume job is organised
Survey. How many units, of what type, what makes, in what condition. With that we know how many days we need and the price, with no surprises at the end.
A calendar by zone. Never the whole property at once. Wing by wing or floor by floor, so that rooms become available again as we go.
Coordination on the ground. Housekeeper, maintenance or management, depending on the property. We agree access, times and the order of work.
A record per unit. Room number, type of unit, what was done, what was flagged. It is the document that justifies the expense, serves as maintenance evidence and lets you plan the following year.
An agreed price per unit. For volumes above twenty units, the price is set case by case according to the type of equipment, the access and the calendar.
Holiday rentals
For owners and managers of holiday rental apartments, the same logic applies on a smaller scale. The difference is the window: between bookings, with an agreed time so as not to cross with check-ins.
The right time is before the start of the season, not in the middle. A clean unit is one of the first things a guest notices.
