Be Our Guest - Which Beds are Right for Your Hotel?
Are your guests dreaming of lying in a comfortable, luxury bed far away from the stresses of home or work, or are your client’s people who travel for their living and need a good night’s sleep to help them attack the next day’s problems? Whoever they are, you need to ensure that your hotel beds are the best you can afford to keep your customers coming back again and again.
It has to be agreed that there is nothing more miserable than taking a 5 hour flight only to toss and turn on a lumpy bumpy mattress all night long or having your holiday marred with chronic backache or neck pains because of a bad hotel mattress. But, how would you know if your customers are unhappy? Some might tell you outright in a very noisy way in front of other customers in the hotel lobby but most will just keep quiet and never book with you again.
One option to find out if your guests are getting a good night’s sleep is to leave a survey in the room or email one after their visit, but most people can’t be bothered to fill them in and only the staunch complainers respond, which won’t give you a complete picture of your average customer’s comfort level.
Another option is to test the bed yourself. You don’t have to sleep in one of your hotel beds to test it, although that might not be a bad idea, but there are a few simple tests you can carry out to find out if your beds are up to par.
A very crude measure as to whether your beds are up for renewal or not is to bounce on them. A bed that creeks, bangs or whines are at the very least annoying to sleep on, but also is a good sign that the bed is at the end of its life.
Lie on your beds for a while, let your muscles relax. Ask yourself…how does it feel? Too soft? Too hard or have you got it, just right? Now try sliding your hand under the small of your back. It should be a bit difficult, but not impossible. If however your hand easily slides behind your back, the mattress is probably too firm, and if your hand won’t budge at all, it’s probably too soft. A hotel mattress should be somewhere in between. Most hotels purchase mattresses that are a medium on the firmness scale to keep everyone happy.
There are four common types of mattresses: coil sprung, pocket sprung, latex foam and hybrid.
Coil sprung beds are a definite no no in the hotel arena and are to be avoided at all costs. For a start, the coils are noisy and creek and crunch as you sleep. Independently sprung beds like this will transfer any little movement across the mattress disturbing other sleepers. These beds will also cause unwanted ‘roll together’, where everyone will end up in the middle of the bed. Although in some cases this function may be deemed desirable!
Pocket sprung beds are definitely the way to go if you choose springs, and they are great for back sufferers! Because each pocket spring reacts independently to your body weight, they help support and correct spinal alignment and the movement remains localized giving everyone a restful night’s sleep. The other plus of the pocket sprung mattress is its breathability, because the coils naturally allow for airflow. For ‘hot sleepers’, a pocket sprung mattress is a good choice.
Latex memory foam beds are super comfortable as they mould to the contours of your body and support it. Latex is a natural product and so does not give off toxic fumes as other foams can. Reactions to latex for allergy sufferers are highly unlikely as there is no skin contact with the product. However, memory foam mattresses retain body heat and can cause some sleepers to become uncomfortably hot during the night.
Hybrid mattresses have a top layer of foam or latex with spring coils beneath. They are a popular hotel choice because they blend the advantages of spring mattresses, giving a nicebouncy feel and good airflow, with a foam mattress, which relieves the pressure points and isolates movements.
It would be useful to note that there are some legalities surrounding the way beds and sofa beds are constructed for hotel use and some of these laws are dependent on the size of your hotel. Larger hotels are required to purchase beds that have been engineered to the ‘contract specifications’ and should have passed a series of British standard fire safety ignition tests… but no worries we are here to help you with all of that at very reasonable prices.
Remember…your customers deserve a bed that gives them the right support – our Commercial Contracts Team is here to support you to do just that!
- 21st July 2021