Toilet paper rush in context

Toilet paper is rolling and leaping off the shelves in supermarkets around the world and apparently quality is the last thing on buyers’ minds … whatever is left will do during the Coronavirus scare.

But deep down, quality matters in the loo and as our international survey of hotel toilet rolls shows, there is actually a statistical link between the quality of the loo paper in hotels and the price you pay per night at the hotel.

 So next time you’re panic buying, think of the quality of the stuff, not just the price.

Sanitation (toilets and personal hygiene) are major concerns for everyone. Just ask the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation or the Indian Government, which have been pouring billions into improving toilet facilities around the world and especially in India, where what’s called “open defecation” has plagued 21st century public health initiatives.

Even though it seems crude, the quality and quantity of your toilet paper while you’re travelling, and the availability of easy-to-use laundries nearby, is a major thing in the hospitality business.

A 2011 study published in the International Journal of Hospitality into repeat business for restaurants[1] showed that of the 12 aspects of restrooms surveyed, availability of toilet paper was the Number 1 thing customers cared about.

You know yourself … hey, it’s a big thing several times a day … every day of your life.

We travelled through Spain, Denmark and Singapore and (you might call it sad) took notes.

While even budget hotels in most countries feature pedestal toilets, many shopping centres and institutions we have visited over the years – such as schools and colleges – do not, or don’t have many of them so you have to ask.

During a tour of Japan in the 1980s, for instance, John deliberately sought out the gorgeous local guest houses and bed-and-breakfast “minshuku” and “ryokan” without first thinking: “hmmm, they’ll probably have traditional Japanese toilets, won’t they?” That was a learning experience!

Teaching trips to India and Iran in the early 2000s alerted him to the reality that most lavatories where he ventured there were also of the “squat” variety and sometimes featured a water hose instead of loo paper.

Pip’s travels in Outback Australia – including internationally known sites such as Birdsville, Wyndham, Alice Springs and Uluru, as well as lesser lights such as Eromanga, Blackall, Cootamundra and Stonehenge – remain etched in the lavatory memory for their variety of conveniences.

Novice travellers to the United States know that the water level in the “water closets” there is a lot higher than it is in Australia, England and most of Europe. Which has consequences.

And our long trip through Singapore and dozens of sites in Spain, Portugal, Denmark and Germany reminded us that the quality and availability of toilet paper varied widely, but inevitably followed a discernible trend: money.

So here is that trend with all the gory details. (Next we survey public laundries (laundromats) with even more details.)

But first, the worldwide story of toilet paper.

Quality. In Australia, the consumer advocacy group CHOICE says it measures toilet paper quality using a standardised method. Choice writer Ashley Iredale[2] writes: “Ultimately, we all want our toilet paper to be soft and strong, tear easily at the perforation and disintegrate quickly once we’ve flushed it down the toilet.”

Our test was a little simpler, given that we were travelling regularly, so the main things we looked for were soft and strong, and plenty of it. We’ve noticed that some hotels tend to provide minimum supplies while others provide abundant supplies. We like abundance.

Quantity: There’s actually a global trade in toilet paper and according to the quirky – but highly ranked in Google – indexing site the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), loo paper is the 141st most traded product on the planet out of 1232, and the 37.7 million tonne market was worth $24.4 billion in 2017[3].

Of course there’s a magazine for this market, called Tissue World Magazine[4], and it reported on the global conference called “Tissue World”, which met in Milan, Italy, in March last year, attracting 172 companies.

The next one is planned for next year in Düsseldorf, Germany.

According to the magazine’s May 2019 edition, the global outlook by that time will have turned gloomy, even though demand is expected to grow, because “tissue sector is attracting too many investments”, the magazine notes, threatening overcapacity, or a glut, which could undermine prices.

At that time we thought this might be a good time to get into the hotel business because toilet tissue prices might be set to tumble. Then the Coronavirus happened.

We did a “panel data” statistical analysis where room price was considered in the context of our three quality measures and location.

Our statistician said: “While abundance is not statistically significant, the proposition that the room price fully factors into unlimited supply still holds.

“The difference is that a 100 per cent score now shows the price effect being equal to $3.34 per room per night (or a cost of 11¢ per quality point) – equivalent to a 4-pack of premium long-roll Woolworths toilet paper.

“The other point to recognise is that toilet paper quality and hotel location only explain two-thirds of the price of a room (see r-squared = 0.668). 

“Other factors therefore explain the remaining 33% variation in room price.

“Nonetheless your argument that the quality of toilet paper in a hotel room is a factor – albeit not a determining factor – in setting room prices is absolutely correct.”

We recorded the paper quality for texture, strength and overall “niceness”, then we wrote down the niceness of each on a scale of 1-10 and recorded the availability of loo paper according to whether we “had to ask” for more or whether there was “plenty available”.

Hotel locations included Singapore on the way west and coming home east, Madrid, Pamplona, Burgos, Leon, Santiago de Compostela, Lisbon, Cordoba, Seville, Granada, Valencia, Barcelona, and Copenhagen.

*The simple survey standard was “did we have to ask for more toilet paper at reception?” 0 = yes, had to ask; 1 = no, plenty available.
** There are other more systematic test standards, see here

[1] Barber, N., Goodman, R. J., & Goh, B. K. (2011). Restaurant consumers repeat patronage: A service quality concern. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 30(2), 329-336.
[2] https://www.choice.com.au/home-and-living/household/everyday-items/articles/how-we-test-toilet-paper#How
[3] https://oec.world/en/profile/hs92/4818/ retrieved Oct 28, 2019
[4] https://www.tissueworldmagazine.com/