Stay one step ahead of the competition and meet your guests’ every need. Here’s how to transform your hotel bedrooms for 2017.
It doesn’t matter how delicious your breakfasts are or how quickly you get their bags to their room, because your guests won’t stay another night if the bedroom doesn’t meet their expectations.
Work your way through these tips and your guests won’t want to go home.
1. Ask guests for their honest opinion
Read review sites like TripAdvisor, where guests are open and honest about their experiences and pinpoint their biggest complaints about your hotel room. Only when you’ve established common problems, can you solve them without wasting a penny. Alternatively, chat face-to-face with guests when they checkout. Be specific with your questioning. Was the bed firm enough? What was the worst part of the experience? Was the Wi-Fi good enough? Was anything in particular missing?
2. Upgrade your empty hotel rooms
Replacing carpets is expensive, so make them as good as new by hiring professionals to deep clean them instead. If noise complaints were an issue, install extra insulation in the walls to soundproof the bedroom. Fit light switches above the bedside table, complete with dimmer switches.
3. Decorate a standout bedroom
Attention grabbing hotel rooms book up fast online because they photograph well and look enticing. Pick a theme for your hotel, but give each bedroom its own personality, giving your guests a unique experience they just have to try. Draw inspiration from the building’s history or the local area, for example. Why not hang regional art on the wall and offer a stack of local magazines? It’ll make your guests feel connected to the area.
For a truly on-trend bedroom, go green. Pantone’s colour of the year pairs well with blue, creams and greys, creating luxurious bedrooms, while calming your guests and helping them sleep. Accent the room with natural materials, like a wooden bed base, and warm metallic finishes, think hammered dark bronze, not polished.
4. Buy the best beds and mattresses you can afford
Companies like Bed Guru offer hotel owners special multi-buy discounts on their range of contract beds and mattresses, so don’t wait for your guests to complain about creaking bed frames or lumpy mattresses – replacing them is cheaper than you might imagine and Bed Guru can remove your old bed bases and mattresses for you.
Pocket sprung mattresses, for example, have individual springs that give your guests a restful night’s sleep with less tossing and turning, by supporting them properly. Some divan bed bases offer extra storage, ideal for luggage, and you can unzip your king or super king size Zip & Link beds to offer guests two single beds and maximise the profits from your hotel rooms by accepting a range of bookings.
5. Dress your hotel beds properly
Swap fitted sheets for flat sheets that you can iron properly and pull tight over your mattress, using tight diagonal folds called ‘hospital corners’. Egyptian cotton is breathable, helping your guests stay cool and sleep comfortably – 300 is the ideal thread count, any lower and the sheets won’t feel soft to the touch, any higher and the sheets will become worn fast.
Offer a choice of pillows, including non-allergenic options for allergy and asthma sufferers, but start with four down pillows and two fibre-fill pillows on each hotel bed.
6. Bring sleep-inducing plants into the bedrooms
Jasmine, Aloe Vera and French lavender. Living plants look and smell great, but the right variety can actually help your guests sleep – it’s one of the cheapest ways to give your guests the best hotel experience, and one of 2017’s most popular interior design trends, bringing nature inside.
