Price, pictures and location are just a few reasons as to whether a hotel will be favored by tourists. What is important is what guests will experience at the hotel. All the elements contribute to the overall rating, or the growing strength of the Guest Experience. How to ensure that the experience is not spoiled by bad acoustics? These hotels have taken care of guest comfort, including acoustics.
The hotel lobby, although large, does not have to overwhelm with reverberations and echoes of bouncing sounds. Acoustic designer ceilings can be installed on the ceiling or walls, while Heradesign wall coverings can be installed on the walls
Photo by Dion de Bakker
The trend of focusing on the guest experience is the new "religion" of hospitality. The slogan Guest Experience, as previously in other Customer Experience industries, has become central to hotel management. Property managers are focusing their efforts by looking holistically at the guest's leisure experience. Interior architects have understood this approach for years, but in reality they focus mainly on the visual realm. Buildings are designed for the eye, not the ear. And it's excessive noise or reverberation that sometimes causes bad feelings and bad reviews.
Takeaway impressions
The idea of taking care of the whole experience began in 1994. Steve Haeckel and Lou Carbone, managers with experience in management and advertising, published the first groundbreaking article on Customer Experiences. They called this phenomenon the "takeaway impression."
The comparison fits perfectly with the hotel industry. Experiences and reviews on booking sites are left by tourists based precisely on what they take away after a stay. One of the most common threads in negative reviews is noise and bad acoustics in hotels.
The problem of bad acoustics is easily eliminated at the design stage. What's more, well-designed interiors of restaurants, rooms, soundproofed corridors and spa areas are difficult to spoil, explains Wojciech Krzyzowski, Technical Advisor at Knauf Ceiling Solutions. And, he adds, the acoustics once the facility is open are not dependent on variable factors: it is not related to service, lack of employees, it is not like the quality of dishes in a restaurant. In a word, a factor that can be unequivocally positively or negatively evaluated by tourists. That is why it is so important.
The hotel lobby, although large, does not have to overwhelm with reverberations and echoes of bouncing sounds. Acoustic designer ceilings can be installed on the ceiling or walls, while Heradesign wall coverings can be installed on the walls
Photo by Matt Livey
Hotel lobbies, although large, do not have to overwhelm with reverberations and echoing bouncing sounds. Acoustic designer ceilings can be installed on the ceiling or walls, while Heradesign wall coverings can be installed on the walls
Photo by Szymon Polanski
Common areas - an architect's nightmare
The most difficult part of the hotel acoustically are all the spaces where guests gather in crowds: the restaurant, the swimming pool, the lobby. The cubic capacity of the rooms, the fact that there are smooth, large areas of walls, floors, ceilings all around, and above all the large number of talking and laughing people, make noise and reverberation most troublesome here.
Therefore, the architect must select products that have a high level of sound absorption - class A, where the material has a coefficient (αw) of 0.90 to 1.00. Therefore, in thoughtful interiors of hotels appear not only carpeting, but also acoustic suspended ceilings. The spaces of the floor and ceiling are able to affect acoustics most effectively. Depending on the interior design, Knauf Ceiling Solutions, as one of the largest manufacturers of ceilings and wall coverings, helps architects match solutions in terms of appearance and cost.
Restaurants act as meeting places. That's why the so-called "social meeting effect" prevails here: it's loud, so people talk louder and louder to be heard, which in turn causes the noise level to rise even further. As a result, everyone shouts to each other. The noise level can thus be as high as approx. 80 dB.
The Van der Valk Exclusief chain facility decided to install elegant white acoustic ceilings from the Eleganza line
Photo: Dion de Bakker
The Jakarta hotel decided to install elegant white acoustic ceilings from the Eleganza line
Photo: Dion de Bakker
In the cafeteria of the Klimahaus Bremerhaven 8° Ost science center in Germany, Knauf Ceiling Solution metal Baffles were installed in the navy blue "sky"
Photo: Dion de Bakker
Among its hundreds of acoustic solutions, Knauf Ceiling Solutions also has some that can be installed in an existing hotel to improve acoustic friendliness. The solutions can even be selected for popular hotels, not just 4- and 5-star ones. Architects from German studio raumUNDfunktion decided to improve the acoustics in one of the catering spaces in this way. Hanging green round Mineral Sonic Element panels were installed on the ceiling. The free-mounted panels can come in many shapes, do not require an overall structure, and have a high reverberation-absorbing capacity, as reflected sound is "absorbed" by the surface on both sides of the panel.
cafeteria
© Knauf Ceiling Solutions
Zollernalb Cafeteria 5
© Knauf Ceiling Solutions
How to soundproof a swimming pool?
Relaxation areas: swimming pools, hot tubs, saunas can sometimes be as difficult to quiet as restaurants. And although tourists don't talk in spas, the surface of the water strongly reflects sounds. It's impossible to lay carpets, hang curtains or put upholstered furniture here. The only solution to lower the unpleasant reverberation is acoustic ceilings.
The problem in this case, however, is moisture, so the ceiling panels must be resistant to such conditions. Ceilings from the Hygena Aquatec line from Knauf Ceiling Solutions, as well as some smooth metal panels or Heradesign durable wood wool panels, among others, meet these requirements. Every situation is different, however, so it's best to consult a professional when choosing.
An example of a perfectly designed facility is the swimming pool in the Swiss city of Uster. The entire surface of the ceiling above the water uses durable panels made of corrosion- and salt-water-resistant aluminum, used in the shipbuilding industry, among others. The metallic finish in shades of gold and alpine white makes it seem as if the sun's rays are shining overhead as you swim. Designers at K+L Architekten made sure that the panels did not form a uniform, smooth surface - arranging them at different heights made it possible to achieve a ripple effect.
A total of 1,500 square meters of Knauf Ceiling Solutions gold panels were hung over the entire surface of the 50-meter Olympic swimming pool
Photo: Lautenschlager
Last but not least - the corridor
The least spectacular part of the hotels are the corridors, but this is where the nuisance of poor acoustics is greatest. Guests complain about noises from the passageways permeating into the rooms: the sound of footsteps, conversations and the nightmare of rumbling suitcase wheels. - A corridor can be silenced by using materials on the floor and ceiling that have a high sound absorption coefficient, but also insulation. That's why architects often turn to ceiling tiles from the ADAGIO line. They have the right shape - oblong dimensions of 2000x300 mm, a good level of sound insulation (up to 39 dB), and at the same time an excellent level of light reflection of 88%, which just in case of dark passageways is of great importance, explains Wojciech Krzyzowski of Knauf Ceiling Solutions.
In the Moxy chain hotel (photo on the left) in Warsaw's Praga district, the ceiling is decorated with dark panels harmonizing with the gray carpeting.
Photo by Szymon Polanski
At Lithuania's Air Hotel, designers decided to decorate the lobby and staircase with black openwork panels from the Mesh Met line.
Photo: Szymon Polanski
In the industrial interiors of hotels opening in historic buildings in Gdansk, Warsaw or Cracow, among others, designers also reach for metal mesh panels or "raw" Heradesign wood wool panels in color. The latter were installed in the common spaces of the Montownia Lofts & Experience hotel. The project won as many as 3 awards in the international European Property Awards in 2021. The author of the architectural concept is RayssGroup studio.
The entirety of the Montownia Lofts & Experience in Gdansk is kept in gray. Above the heads one can see Heradesign acoustic wood wool panels from Knauf Ceiling Solutions adjacent to the ceilings
Photo: Szymon Polanski
The entirety of the Gdańsk Lofts & Experience assembly room is kept in grays. Overhead, you can see Heradesign acoustic wood wool panels from Knauf Ceiling Solutions' range adjacent to the ceilings
Photo by Szymon Polanski
