The question of whether or not you should provide irons and ironing board in all your rooms, or only make them available upon request, depends on what your clientele expects.

Generally speaking, if you’re operating a property that caters to holidaying travellers, people who like to get away from their daily lives when they’re in your property, they don’t want to see irons, ironing boards, microwave ovens or other reminders of the daily lives they’re on vacation from.

Plus the odds are low that pleasure travellers will be concerned about whether or not their clothes have wrinkles. Still, there is always that big night out to dress up for, so if you don’t put irons and boards in rooms, it should be clear to guests that they’re available at no charge from the front desk.

Business travellers like having irons and boards in the room, to make sure they look their best before the big meeting. Properties catering to family travellers should have irons and boards in all rooms as well.

Experienced travellers will simply steam wrinkled clothes in the shower if they need an iron and one is not to be found. Or they’ll habitually pack travel irons and use your mattress as an ironing board.

Of course the really experienced road warriors won’t wear many clothes that require ironing in the first place.

If your reason for not providing irons and ironing boards in all guest rooms is that you want to subtly encourage guests to employ the services of the hotel laundry, well, we’re not telling you how to run your business, but you will probably save yourself a bit of online social media bashing if you make it clear to guests that while irons and boards are not standard in guest rooms, they may request irons and boards from the front desk at no charge.

And get bashed you will - travellers who have otherwise had wonderfully enjoyable travel experiences in Italy commonly report that the one thing that puzzles them is how there are never irons or boards in an Italian hotel room. It’s frankly one of life’s conundrums how people so fastidious about their personal appearance as Italians seem to live without ironing.