5 Hotel Bathroom Design Ideas Guests Will Rave About (and Your Housekeeping Staff and Accountants will Love)

You want your hotel guests to rave (not rage) on social media about your guest room (and bathroom) design. However, in the hyper competitive hospitality world their expectations keep going up and up.

Whether you lead or manage a budget or boutique hotel, large resort or small bed and breakfast you have to make a profit while simultaneously making sure you have clean rooms and are creating an exceptional experience.

You don’t want your hard to find housekeeping staff cutting corners (and quality). However, it takes time to clean grout joints, tile niches and shower door frames so your guests aren’t complaining to the front desks about a yucky bathroom.

So, this brings us to 2 key (and competing) questions about the design of your hotel bathrooms and showers:

• Question 1) How can you design your bathrooms to create an extraordinary experience and differentiate your brand?

• Question 2) How can you design your bathrooms to be easier (and more time-efficient) to clean? After all, 65% of your housekeeping budget are wages and salaries. How can you stop front desk complaints before they get started?

In this article I’ll look at 5 practical (yet stylish) ideas to do the (seemingly) impossible – create a distinctive bathroom and shower and reduce housekeeping costs and operating expenses. Let’s check out the 5 ideas.

Hotel bathroom design idea #1 – Blow up tile grout joints, without sacrificing the luxury tile look  

Who on your housekeeping staff loves to clean tile grout joints? ‘Er – that would be no one! And the time to scrub away dirt and scum is so time-consuming it makes the financial people break out into a sweat.

When you realize, in most hotel rooms, tile grout joints are everywhere it doesn’t take a self-professed psychic from the Psychic Friends Hotline to conclude these joints are a front desk complaint waiting to happen.

Although your tiles ‘looked’ great the day they were installed, if your tile joints scream out ‘nasty and dirty’ to guests today they may not only never return but also ‘blast out’ their ‘findings’ to everyone on Instagram and Facebook at your expense.

The question is, can you find a better, yet-stylish alternative to grouted tiles?  

One grout-free idea (which blows the doors of fake-plasticky-looking, molded products like acrylic and cultured stone) are laminated wall panels. These specially designed hotel shower wall panels not only have the look and feel of real grout joints, but they’re non-porous. They’ll slash the time it takes your housekeeping staff to clean a shower or bathtub surround.

Since these panels come in 2’ x 8’ x 3/8” modular sections (which weigh 26 lbs.) they can be installed by your maintenance people.

You’ll also get your interior designer excited because design styles range from Modern Minimalist to Transitionalist to Modern Farmhouse.

Why put up with nasty hotel shower and bathroom wall grout joints ever again?

Hotel bathroom design idea #2 – Ditch the 60” x 30” alcove tub. Build a shower.

In residential home remodeling, bath to shower conversion projects are hot. You may ask, why. Here’s two reasons.

• Stepping over a tub rail is dangerous.

• Nobody has the time to sit and bathe in a tub.

In your hotel or resort, guests are looking to get out quick. They have a meeting. They’re sightseeing or visiting relatives (and were glad they weren’t ‘stuck’ having to sleep over their house). They’re not looking to soak and bath in your bathtub. Besides, half them are grossed out at the thought of bathing in a tub (and the germs in this tub) some stranger (might have) used yesterday. I know my wife Rose wouldn’t be caught dead using a hotel bathtub, and I know she’s not alone.

It’s for this reason, contemporary hotel bathroom designs favor showers over tubs.

When you design using a shower, you could have the side benefit of gaining space (a stand-up shower is smaller than a 60” tub), giving you more room for a niche for towels. In addition, you’ll also have a smaller space for housekeeping to clean and a shower is less back breaking to clean than bending over a tub rail (maybe you’ll finally start reducing those workmen’s comp expenses).

Hotel bathroom design #3 – Make it simpler to clean bathroom ‘nooks and crannies’ which Mrs. Thomas (if she actually exists) would want NO part of!  

Cleaning a hotel bathroom IS NOT a tasty job (am I ‘Captain Obvious’ right here, or not?).

When you think about the ‘nooks and crannies’ of a hotel bathroom they surely aren’t as tasty as dreaming about the buttery or raspberry jelly-filled nooks and crannies of a Mrs. Thomas’ English Muffin (and no Mrs. Thomas doesn’t have me on the payroll for that free non-paid plug!).

No, the nooks and crannies your Manager of Housekeeping worries about keeping clean and having guests coming back are around the toilet or inside tile shower niches. They want (and you need) these nooks and crannies cleaned well. Your manager also wants to increase the number of rooms cleaned per staff member per shift, at the same time. They want to reduce operating expenses.

Nooks and crannies are the archenemy of hotel operating efficiency. The good news is there are ways to ‘beat-down’ this enemy.

One idea (if you’re building or remodeling and want a contemporary bathroom) is to use a wall hung toilet. With a wall hung toilet (or wall hung vanity for that matter) these nooks and crannies on the floor are eliminated.

Another idea (for your shower or bathtub surround) is to get rid of tile niches and install a stainless-steel shower niche. They look sharp, have a modern matte finish and are easy to clean. You also won’t have guest complaining about the cheap wire baskets you installed years ago where the soap always falls through the cracks (as a side-note, these wire baskets drive me NUTS!).

Hotel bathroom design idea #4 – Less ‘design’ can be more stylish for your guest (and give you a better financial return)

Let’s face it, there are a lot of ‘not-so-great’ choices for the entry to your shower or tub surround.

First, there’s the shower curtain option. The problem with shower curtains is they get dirty, stained and need constant replacement.

Or you could use a pivoting door, but they leave pools of water on the floor.

Lastly, you could use a sliding door, but they often have bottom tracks which trap soap and scum no human being wants to look at, let-alone clean!

You need an operationally efficient (OK – that’s code word for simple to clean and cuts cleaning costs per occupied room), yet stylish way go create a shower or tub entry. Here’s one idea to consider.

Use a straight or cool curved shower screen with a walk-in shower design. This product works in 48”, 54” or 60” wide alcove spaces. It’s contemporary, has a smaller surface area to clean and creates a ‘wow’ look to inspire guests to say, “Wouldn’t this look cool in my home?”

This option is a ‘win’ for your guest and a ‘win’ for you.

Hotel bathroom design idea #5 – Stylish shower pans which ‘take a licking and keep on ticking’

I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember this classic Timex watch commercial where they used their once-famous tag line, Timex, It Takes a Licking Yet Keeps on Ticking. If not give it a quick view and add a little humor to your day.

While watches need to be durable (and waterproof), the fallout from a failed shower pan not being durable and waterproof are much larger than this $9.95 (back in the day) Timex watch.

A leaky shower pan in a hotel bathroom or in  your unique bed and breakfast is a disaster. As you know if the shower pan goes bad, ‘Houston (insert whatever town your hotel, resort or bed and breakfast is located in) you have a problem.’ If the base goes bad everything above it goes with it (your tiled walls, wall panels and glass enclosure can be casualties). In addition, if you own a bed and breakfast with a wood subfloor you may have to fix damage to your ceiling, furniture or floor coverings in the level below also.

So, the question becomes how can you find a stylish, yet durable, shower pan which won’t blow up your maintenance budget or eat into your ‘cap-ex’ funds?

One option is to use a solid surface shower pan. While they aren’t easy to move around because they’re heavy, they are built like a tank (and will last). In addition, they are simple for your housekeeping staff to clean because they have ZERO joints.

The second option is a contemporary reinforced acrylic shower pan. These units are sturdy because they’re built on an MDF core underneath – yet have a clean, contemporary elegant design.

Conclusion

While a lot of time is investing designing the ultimate lobby to welcome guests, much less thought is usually invested choosing bathroom products which not only work but inspire your guests to return (and drive down operating costs).

Bathroom and shower design should not be the red-haired stepchild (my advance apologies to any red-haired stepchildren out there) of your hotel or B and B. These spaces are used daily by every guest and have a huge impact whether you will see them again or if they will brag or ‘rag’ about your property on social media.

When you choose the right products, you’ll not only improve the guest experience but will also make life simpler on your cleaning staff and improve your bottom line. Now, doesn’t this sound like a hotel bathroom design ‘trifecta’ worth exploring?

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If you’re intrigued by the use of waterproof laminate shower wall panels, shower screens or solid surface or reinforced acrylic shower pans (or just want to talk bathroom design strategies) contact Innovate Building Solutions (or me – I’m Mike, the author of this article). We’d love to talk to you about bathroom ideas for your next project.

Call 877-668-5888 and ask Mike. I’m looking forward to getting to know you and helping your business grow.  

If you’d like to connect on LinkedIn, you’ll find me https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikefoti/

If you’re into Twitter follow me @Mike_Foti or my companies’ @InnovateBuild and @InnovateHomeOrg.