Design · 8 min read
Expensive interior design mistakes that cost you bookings
We have designed and furnished dozens of properties across Central Europe. The same mistakes come back on one investment after another, and every time they cost exactly the same thing: bookings.
Overloading the room with furniture
An armchair nobody uses costs 300 to 800 euro. An extra side table, 200 to 400. Multiply that by fifty rooms and you have a figure that bought you nothing but a tighter interior.
Every item in a room should have a real function. A guest does not judge the number of pieces of furniture — they judge whether there is somewhere to put a suitcase and whether you can walk freely to the bathroom.
Aesthetics at the expense of function
Around 40 percent of negative reviews are about functionality rather than looks. No socket by the bed, a light you cannot dim, a rail that takes two items of clothing.
Every point down in the rating means 10 to 15 percent lower revenue in practice, because the hotel drops out of search filters and loses its ranking position.
Ignoring acoustics
Sleep quality is the most frequently cited driver of hotel guest satisfaction. Noise from the corridor and the room next door comes back in reviews more often than the decor does.
The fixes are well known and cheap at design stage: carpet instead of a hard floor, heavy curtains, acoustic panels, door seals. Once the property has opened, each of those costs many times more.
Saving money on mattresses
Four hundred euro saved on a mattress can cost around 76 thousand euro a year in lost bookings and lower ratings. It is the worst-calculated saving in the whole industry.
Mattresses are replaced every five to seven years, pillows every year or two. That schedule belongs in the operating budget from day one.
A lobby for Instagram instead of rooms
A striking lobby photographs well, but the guest pays for a room and judges the room. A sensible split is 60 to 65 percent on rooms, 20 to 25 percent on public areas and 10 to 15 percent on back of house.
Materials chosen without a maintenance calculation
Poor material choices raise running costs by 15 to 25 percent a year. Light upholstery in the breakfast area, grout that cannot be cleaned, fronts that show every fingerprint.
Designing without hotel experience
A hotel project run by a studio with no delivered work in the sector ends up 30 to 40 percent over budget. Not because the designers are weak, but because a hotel has rules you do not see when designing apartments.
Want to work through this on your own property?
The first consultation is free and ends with concrete recommendations, not a quote.
Read on