What exactly is a hotel? And how can hotel interior design alter the way yours is perceived?
These two questions are very dependent on one another. A hotel is a temporary place of stay, and a good one can be a home-away-from-home for the patrons who're staying there. This is where hotel interior design comes in. A shabby and run-down space with terrible service, awful spaces, and poor first impressions always makes a bad impact on all guests.
On the other hand, a beautifully presented space with a relaxing aura and good service can lead to work-of-mouth popularity as well. The DS 600 sofa can be a stand-out furniture piece to wow guests as they enter the hotel. Not every single hotel can be the Ritz Carlton or the Hilton, but many can be as good as, as long as there's a great focus on the intricacies of interior designing.
Now, there are a lot of components of a hotel interior design, and further we'll be taking a look at a few of them in detail:
What to decide before initiating the hotel design
Here are a few things your hospitality designer will suggest that you do before coming up with the solid components of your hotel interior design:
The type of hotel: The very first thing that you must determine before investing in the interior design is what type of a hotel you want your establishment to be. Because this decision is going to impact how you want your building to be perceived. For example, a boutique hotel is going to be quaint, charming, and focused on the localized traditions. A chain hotel, on the other hand, is going to be more urban chic and contemporized.
The theme: The theme or the interior design style of your hotel is determined once you've decided on the typology of your hotel. Many owners go with abstract concepts such as modernism, classical, traditional, industrial, midcentury modern, or contemporary. But some owners also go for more avant-garde and unique themes such as cinemas, adventure spaces, tropical havens, and even chateaus. It all depends on the kind of audience that you're trying to attract and if the demographic is easily available.Your theme is further going to determine what the smaller components of your hotel interior design will be. For example, the furniture, lighting, and finishes of an industrial style hotel will be totally different from that of a midcentury modern or classical one.
The zoning of spaces: Once the theme has been selected, it's time for you to start on the zoning. This basically means that you'll decide in theory where most of the spaces are going to be; where the reception and entrance might be, where the servant quarters, restaurants, and the bedrooms are going to be located. Many hotel restaurants have adopted a mid century modern dining room. This can also help determine how many rooms (especially the types of rooms; i.e. single, double, suites, penthouse, etc.) there are going to be.
Your business plan: The last decision to be made before starting the process of hotel interior design is determining the business plan. You have to decide how much money you're willing to invest in your project, what your financial projects might be for the future, and what strategies you'll be implementing to accomplish that through the design process.
Components of a hotel interior design
Hospitality design is a very vast genre, but if you're willing to overlook the intricacies and just focus on the basics, here are some of the major components of a hotel interior design:
The entrance lobby
Every great hotel interior design starts at the entrance. This is where the theme becomes apparent to the patrons. The thing about the entrance is that it has to be large and welcoming for the guests to immediately take a liking to the hotel. There are four things that can help you make the lobby as great as possible:
The layout: First of all, the layout of the lobby has to be as simple and spacious as possible. Do not make the guest search for anything. Make it absolutely straightforward. The moment they enter, the layout should lead them to a reception area, which must point them to the elevators and staircases. However, there should be a large transitional space between the entrance and the reception so that the desk doesn't get crowded even during the rush hours.
The furniture: The furniture, once again, is selected according to the theme of your hotel interior design. However, it can be generic as well as long as it matches the overall ambiance. If you're searching for some trendy suggestions, then you can use the Warren Platner Chairs for the reception area. The Egg Chair by Arne Jacobson was especially designed for hotels to being with, so that's a great choice for the lobbies as well. Similarly, the Noguchi Freeform Sofa is just the right amount of trendy and accommodating to fit in a number of hospitality design themes.
Egg Chair
The lighting: Lighting is an extremely important component for hotel lobby designs, and most of the time it has to walk a fine line between decorative and luminous to feel truly befit the hospitality design quota. You can opt for traditional LEDs and hidden rope lights for most of the ceiling, but a single statement piece such as the Artichoke Lamp just in front of the reception can make a great impact.
Artichoke Lamp
The overall ambiance: Lastly, the overall ambiance of the hotel interior design has to be perfectly complementary to seem welcoming. If any single thing is out of place or badly mismatched, it's going to have a bad impact on the atmosphere.
The rooms
There are typically 4 types of hotel rooms single, double, triple, and suites. Each of their interior designs vary according to the typology, so here are a few tips to make the most of them:
Single: A single hotel room consists of just one bed along with a small seating space, nightstands, and circulation area. The lighting in such rooms largely comes from an oversized window, but when night falls, the ambient lighting is turned on. While the bed and nightstands must be chosen according to the typical hotel standards, you can add a little personality with the seating. The Bowl Chair and the Hans Wegner Circle Chair are both a great option to accentuate a Single. You can place a small end table with them to project a wholesome image.
Hans Wegner Circle Chair
Double: A double bed room (usually known as a Double) comes with 2 single beds, a nightstand, a dresser come TV cabinet, and a small seating area. Once again, the beds and TV cabinet are standardized according to the hotel interior design standards, but you can add a little differentiation by choosing interesting accent chairs. Since the extra space in Doubles is usually smaller, the chairs have to be compact. The Platner Easy Chair and the Husk Chair High Back are excellent options. Alternately, you can also opt for a loveseat. The Swan Loveseat, the Mia Loveseat, the Corbusier Petite Modele Loveseat, and Poet Sofa are all great options to furnish a Double.
Warren Platner Easy Chair
Triple: A Triple consists of 3 single beds with the hotel standardized nightstands and TV cabinet. Once again, the only way to add a bit of personality is through the chairs. However, the circulation space in Triples is even less than the Doubles, so the size of the chairs matter a lot. The Swan Chair, title="Shell Chair">Shell Chair, and the Womb Chair & Ottoman are good choices to furnish such rooms. You can even add a tall floor lamp such as the title="Arco Lamp">Arco Lamp to create a sense of individuality to the chair.
Womb Chair & Ottoman
Suite: There's a lot of furnishing potential within a suite because its layout is large by design. The lounge must have adequate seating that also makes a statement. The Florence Sectional Sofa and the B&B Charles Sofa Large are viable choices. A mid century modern office desk works nicely in the corner area of a suite. Even the dining chairs can be thematically customized the Beetle Chair and the Heart Chair are two contrasting examples. While one is sophisticated and chic, the other one is bold and thematic. And of course, you can have your pick at accenting the rooms with a number of bold choices depending on the style, the purpose, and the available space.The lighting and overall ambiance of a suite hotel interior design goes hand in hand. While the furniture and theme set the major tone within the space, it's the lighting and the careful complementing of various elements that make the space worthy for guests.
Gaston Chair
The transitional spaces
The transitional spaces in a hotel interior design are just as important to design as the rooms and the lobby itself. They comprise of various spaces such as the corridors, waiting areas, and the public dining hall.
Once again, all of these spaces have to follow the overall theme of your hotel interior design. The corridors cannot be classical if the main lobby is modern and vice versa. You have to keep the tone of the space familiar throughout the design. Here's how you can benefit from improving the interior design of all these aspects:
Corridors: With corridors, there is very little room to get creative. But you can follow the theme by introducing recurring design elements incorporated in the walls, the ceiling, or even the floor. You can play with the layout and the lighting even the door designs of the rooms that the corridor leads to but at the end of the day, nothing can make it all cohesive more than the right furniture. A small sitting area or two in between the winding pace of the corridor can make a ton of difference in how the guests will perceive the hotel as a whole.
Tom Dixon Wingback Chair
Waiting areas: Most people believe that the only waiting area in a hotel is the one beside the reception, but that's not the case at all. There are smaller versions of these located throughout perhaps one or two on every floor granted the size of the hotel is large enough. The furniture has a huge impact on the comfort and overall presentation of these areas. Stylish daybeds or medium sized sofas with a few accent chairs are all good choices to furnish them.With these spaces at hand, guests can relax and carry common conversations outside of their bedrooms without feeling ill at ease or uncomfortable.
Oppo O50a High Back Chair
The benefits of hotel interior design
So, now that you know just how you can customize a hotel interior design, here are a few benefits that you might not have known about:
Great Branding: Do you know how worldwide hotel chains make themselves so universal? By having a branded interior design. They have standardized furniture, reception desks, and light fixtures that are used in every branch throughout the world granted there are a few modifications in the overall implementation.
Good Financial Projections: The financial margins of your hotel can significantly improve by investing in a proper interior design. It not only helps differentiate between different hotels in a high-concentration area, but also helps make a lasting impression on the guest. It might even inspire them to book again on their next visit.
Functional & Aesthetic Aspects: Secondly, a good hotel interior design can help ensure that the guests are always at ease by being surrounded by both function and aesthetics. If you focus on one in lieu of the other, you'll only end up demoralizing the patrons. Nobody wants a gorgeous lobby where the elevator is broken. This is grounds for bad marketing and the customers will know for sure. So, you’ll have to combine the best of both worlds to truly benefit from your hospitality interior design.
So, this is everything that you need to know about hotel interior design and how it can impact your overall earnings. Initial investment is definitely necessary to get the best end results, but don't forget to consult a great hospitality designer for a better understanding of your prospects.
