In the dark, almost all appear the same
When you switch off the lights to go to bed, every hotel room on earth has one thing in common – they all look the same! This leads to another interesting fact; most of the time spent by guests in their hotel rooms is whilst sleeping. In other words, the single activity that takes the most of one’s time in a hotel room is when one is asleep. Conversely, when you deduct the time you slept in the room from the total number of hours spent in the room, you will discover that the total time you were awake in the room is significantly less.
If you are a business traveller, it might go like this; Return to your hotel room after completing the business of the day (meetings, presentations, site visits, etc) around 5.30 in the evening. Go out for dinner by 7.00 pm; get back your room by ten a clock at night and fall asleep from 10.30 pm until 6.30 am next morning. Leave your room by 7.30 am for breakfast and thereafter leave the hotel to carry out the day’s business agenda. Of the total 630 minutes spent in the room, 480 minute of it was used up when you’re nervous system was inactive, the eyes closed, the postural muscles relaxed, and consciousness practically suspended –i.e. when you were asleep.
Even when on holiday, subtract the time spent on the beach or by the pool, going sightseeing, shopping, watching a sports event at the stadium and eating or dining out. Most likely, the time spent in the hotel room would be about the same even though one may go to bed later and sleep longer into daybreak. Be it on business or on leisure, when a guest checks-in to a hotel room, he or she, on average spends less than 50% of the 24-hour day in the room, and, of the time spent in the room, over 75% is spent sleeping. (More - if one is attending a meeting, incentive, conference or exhibition).
So, what does this tell us? Immediately, two things spring to mind. Firstly the financial equation, where on the one hand we hoteliers’ look at RevPar (Acronym for Revenue per available room). On the other hand, mercifully, our guests do not calculate their ‘spend’ on the room rate against the actual ‘time’ they spent in the guest room. Imagine if they divided their total nightly cost by the number of hours they were away from the room? What would that acronym be? DSPAH (Dollars Spent Per Away Hour)? Secondly, and, more importantly, when guests spend over 75% of their time in the hotel room to sleep – they unreservedly deserve a comfortable bed.
Now I’m sure our hotel industry developers, interior designers, and decision makers would like to think that our guests select a specific hotel based on factors such as décor, amenities, lighting, fixtures and technology. Yes, they certainly do, but, above all, a good bed for a good sleep puts everything else to rest. We spend roughly a third of our life in bed. If the hotel room, however, was our permanent home, it’s more like half of our lives - making the bed arguably, the most important component in the room. While hotels sell services and amenities, from Wi-Fi to butlers who will unpack for you, it’s really the bed that most guests are focused on. According to a 2014 Gallup survey, more than half of guests who stay in the highest-priced properties said they would pay more for an improved bed. Among all respondents, a comfortable bed was most often named as the most important feature of a hotel room, more than any other amenity, including a great view, glittering features, Internet access and helpful employees.
Have you noticed that when it comes to hotels, almost everyone in the industry imitates or adopts the practices or behaviour of another? Despite plenty of hotel names, the variables remain more or less the same. Should one hotel add an attractive and useful feature, it is not long thereafter, before all follow suit. It soon becomes a fashionable marketing fad which quickly fades into oblivion. Take the case of the ‘Breakfast anytime, anywhere’ proposition. No longer is it flaunted. Everyone says they provide it. Not so in the case of beds, where many hotels, particularly those in the non-luxury categories shop for the lowest price, instead of the best they can afford. Thus ignoring the cost-per-day value of a mattress (where the guest should be on it 6-9 hours per day). Hotel operators must realise that there is a direct relationship in the price of a mattress to the quality of it.
When looking around for the best quality sleep set, - particularly if one is planning to replace the current mattress, adopt the *E.A.S.E. method. It involves the four steps; evaluate your current mattress, arm yourself with knowledge, shop to find the right mattress and ensure quality care. The stage is now set to embark on the next phase – test drive the selected mattresses following the *S.L.E.E.P test. Surprisingly, most people have never heard of it including many suppliers of bedding. The acronym SLEEP stands for; select a mattress, lie down in your typical position plus in various positions, evaluate level of comfort and support, educate yourself about each selection and get someone to partner you/someone else in testing the mattress together. Finally, request the salesperson to show you actual cutaways or illustrations of the different mattresses in order to better understand the results of your SLEEP test.
Whether one is traveling for business or pleasure, getting good sleep is crucial to having enough energy to power through ones days away from home. And that’s why the majority of today’s travellers book a hotel that has a room with a great bed. That’s a strong enough reason to find the best quality sleep set – one that would lead to less vacant hotel rooms.
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-Hotelier
|
|
|
|
