Hospitality Rugs: Everything You Should Know
Like other service industries, delivering great service in the hospitality industry means giving your patrons excellent and unforgettable experiences. Every memorable experience begins in a truly unique environment, so you have to set the tone from the moment your patrons walk into your facility.
What better way to wow and engage your hotel patrons than to make a strong and refreshing statement with a hospitality area rug?
A truly beautiful floor covering, apart from adding a royal and sophisticated look, can help you set the right atmosphere for your patrons.
Commercial hospitality rugs can help to showcase the personality and style of your hotel, restaurant, club, or bar by livening and lighting it up with their intricate patterns, beautiful color combination, and soft cushioning.
Hotel doorways, corridors, and hallways often are considered less important when picking out floors for decoration but they see the most traffic of all the spaces in hotels – and can help make the first impression on guests with their elegant presence.
We understand that choosing a commercial hospitality rug can be a daunting task because hospitality projects differ – each one with its objectives and unique ambiance – and would require rugs that can help it achieve its aim.
Below is a list of different types of rugs used in hotels and a comprehensive guide that will not only help you select the best hospitality rugs, but also teach you how to install and maintain them.
Why Hospitality Area Rugs Instead Of Hard Flooring?
Hotels and other entities within the hospitality industry are renowned for providing patrons with unique and memorable experiences. Hence, customers troop in there in their numbers to get away from all the bustle of work and other stressful activities.
This frequent traffic usually results in floor wears and an unusual level of sound. So your best bet at solving the challenge is by installing hospitality area rugs that are specifically designed for such purposes.
Although hardwoods, tile, concrete, and other hard floorings have their role in certain hospitality projects, they lack the intricate designs, beautiful color combinations, soft texture, and overall elegance offered by commercial hospitality rugs.
Thankfully, hotel rugs are pretty easy to install & maintain, and their overall benefits can never be overstated.
Let’s take a sneak peek into some benefits of hotel rugs.
Benefits of Commercial Hospitality Rugs over Hard Flooring
Durability
Durability is one of the pros of a quality hotel rug. Commercial hospitality rugs that are of high-quality and well maintained can last long for 10-30 years.
Antique rugs like handwoven Persian rugs and hand-knitted oriental rugs have been tested and proven to be exceptionally durable. They can withstand usage stress over a long time and maintain their beauty without showing signs of wear or fading.
Although they are not always available and are mostly used as residential rugs, they can do excellent jobs when used as commercial hospitality rugs, especially in a high-traffic place like hotels, clubs, restaurants, etc.
You should learn how to differentiate between handwoven rugs and machine-made rugs.
Noise Absorption
Accounting for noise and keeping it down as much as possible is one of the most critical parts of any hotel project. It is your job to create an intimate and serene environment, no matter the number of guests in your facility.
Hotel collection area rugs often come in handy in such situations by providing clear audio sound benefits. They help to reduce noise by absorbing sound from the surrounding, rather than reflecting it as hard flooring does.
Diversity of Style
Hospitality area rugs are very versatile due to their diverse nature. They are made in different colors, designs, patterns, textures, and some rug manufacturers also take custom orders if you want a personalized one that matches your project.
Hotel rugs can come in modern, traditional, and transitional styles. They are also made with textures and materials such as wool, silk, jute, cotton, polypropylene, and several others.
This diversity of commercial hospitality rugs is why many find them appealing. They make it possible for designers to express themselves however they want and get creative in decorating a hotel, bar, restaurant, club, or any other hospitality project.
Improves Safety
The soft texture of a hotel rug’s surface provides warm and comfortable cushioning to the feet and body in case of a trip, slip, or fall, preventing possible pains or injury to the bones and joints.
Unlike hard flooring, hospitality area rugs provide a better foothold, reducing slips and falls.
Prevention of Static Electricity Shock
An electric shock can be a very annoying experience, especially in a hotel where visitors are supposed to get pleasant and beautiful experiences. Placing anti-static rugs will prevent your guests from having this not-so-pleasant experience in your facility.
Temperature Control
Hotel rugs feel warmer and don’t draw heat from the feet as hard flooring because they contain fiber materials that act as natural heat insulators. These rugs help to create a cozy environment and are more energy-efficient than smooth flooring.
Environmental Sustainability
Sustainability has become an important rug design consideration in recent times. If you want to inject sustainability in your hospitality project, then you should buy your rugs from manufacturers that consider the environmental impact of their products and address it at every stage of rug production.
Rug backing is a primary source of concern due to the material it is made of. Materials such as PVC and bitumen are considered harmful to the environment. So you should buy from manufacturers who don’t use these additives in their production process.
What to Consider Before Choosing Commercial Hospitality Rugs
These are some of the factors to put into consideration before choosing a rug or flooring carpet for your hotel:
Material
A rug’s material is one of the most important parts of a rug, so you have to give it due consideration before choosing. Factors such as texture, durability, ease of maintenance, cost, functionality, and overall rug quality hugely depend on the type and quality of a rug material.
Rug materials can range from natural fabric materials including wool, silk, jute, cotton, sisal, and seagrass, to synthetic materials including polypropylene, polyester, nylon, etc.
Hotel rugs made with natural materials are generally considered to be of high-quality but are usually more expensive than synthetic ones. However, synthetic materials are common in modern machine-made rugs and are considered to be more aesthetic and affordable.
Rug Design
Design is also very important as it can have an impact on the overall quality and durability of rugs. Rugs can be handwoven, hand-knitted, hand-tufted, needle-punched, or machine-made.
Handwoven rugs like the antique Persian rugs and some Oriental rugs are usually produced on a loom and are believed to be of superior quality to many other rug designs. They are a good choice for luxurious hospitality projects.
It would be helpful if you learned how to buy the best oriental area rug.
Nonetheless, tufted rugs, which are machine-made, account for almost 95% of all residential and commercial hospitality rugs.
Cost
The commercial hospitality rug you are looking to buy should fit into your design and installation budget. But trying to lower your cost with a cheaper option may cause more harm than good to your goals. So consider investing in good quality hotel rugs if you fancy longevity.
Rug Backing
A rug backing is made from latex, woven textiles, PVC, or bitumen. While the first two are quite expensive, the remaining two are inexpensive but not environmentally sustainable.
A thin or smooth rug backing may cause rugs to slide around and can embarrass and injure guests and hotel staff alike.
So, make sure to buy a rug with thick and rough backing to help the rug stay in its position at all times. Thick latex is expensive but has proven to be the best option.
Features and Qualities to Look Out For In Hotel Rugs
Aesthetics
You’re not just buying a rug for its warmth and soft cushioning, you would want your hospitality area rug to beautify and lighten up the atmosphere in your hotel or restaurant.
So you must choose a rug with appealing aesthetics, flamboyant colors, and intricate designs that can make your space pop like a mini-paradise – one with a plush and luxurious look that can complement the rest of the hotel décor.
Comfort
People visit hotels to have a good time and be pampered with the coziest furnishing, restful beds, and every other thing that can give them the best comfort. Hospitality area rugs deliver this seamlessly.
Ease of Maintenance
One of the best decisions you can make when it comes to choosing a hotel rug is to buy one that’s very easy to clean and maintain. Stains, spills, and dirt are almost inevitable in high traffic places like hotels, bars, and restaurants.
Durability
Hotels and other hospitality outlets see a lot of traffic, so they usually require floorings that are sturdy and durable. The rug must be able to withstand the pressure from walking, heavy wheels, trolleys, and other things that may pass over it.
Safety & Acoustic
Hotel rugs should not be slippery even when they get exposed to water or other liquids. They must have good footholds to prevent slips, falls, and any other potential source of pain or injury.
Rugs in a hotel should also be able to absorb sound and reduce noise to create a more relaxed and peaceful ambiance.
Preparing For Your Commercial Hospitality Rug Project
Now that you know the factors to consider, as well as the features and qualities to look out for in a hospitality area rug, below are the things you need to do when you are ready to buy.
Get a Sample of the Rug
Before placing an order, get a feel of what the rug and the entire design you have in mind will look like in practice.
Take the sample material and place it where you want to use it. See what it looks like and how well it complements and fits into the objectives you have in mind for that particular space.
Ensure the quality is the same as the one you want to buy as it can tell on the feel and appearance of the rug. Pay attention to texture, designs, and patterns.
Choose a Rug backing
The rug backing is just as important as the rug material itself. The backing material or fabric can have so many effects on the performance of your rug. A good backing material will provide a good underfoot feel, acoustic properties, and influence the durability of the rug.
Prepare the flooring plan
Another important line of action is to prepare and map out your flooring plan because failure to do so may result in costly mistakes that may require a lot of money, time, and resources to be corrected.
So to avoid having an unpleasant experience, we suggest that you map out your rug placement plan and have the rug manufacturer and installer check it to ensure that every detail is correct.
Get ready for installation
It is important to have details and follow the instructions from both the hotel rug manufacturer and the installer before the rug delivery is made.
You may need to adhere to the 24-hour wait time that’s required for wall-to-wall carpeting to settle down before installation. Also, find out if it’s necessary to air the space for 48-hours after the installation.
Hotel Rug Maintenance
To keep your hospitality area rug in top shape for a long time, you would need to have a clear and concise maintenance plan or schedule.
Traffic lanes, congested areas like doorways and stairwells, and track off areas are likely to get more stains, and dirt than other parts of the hotel where the rugs are placed, so they would need more cleaning and maintenance to maintain their standard.
Take quick action to remove spot stains, vacuum regularly to remove dry soils, use foam cleaning whenever needed, or seek the help of professional rug care services to help maintain your hotel rugs.
In a nutshell, hospitality area rugs have proven to be an economical choice. Tiling can easily be chipped off or hampered, marbles are very expensive and can get stained. But rugs can fall within your budget with their low installation and maintenance cost.
They can fit seamlessly into your design objectives while offering quality, safety, and durability at the same time. Their versatility also gives you enough room to get creative and personalize your space according to your desire.