Blog: Create a Welcoming Atmosphere for Your Lobby
First impressions are extremely important and when it comes to hospitality, this is even more important. Hotels need comprehensive strategies and a host of offerings to stand out among their competitors but for visitors to a hotel, the first thing they interact with is the hotel lobby.
Many people consider the hotel lobby “the face of the hotel” and there is good reason for that. People walk into the lobby and they start to imagine what kind of a place the hotel is. This might seem like a burden but if you have invested in a great lobby then, you will enjoy the benefits. A nice inviting lobby is a great way to draw in various guests, in fact, a lobby can actually become part of a hotel’s reputation and a local landmark, if managed properly. Here are a few things you can look at to make your lobby more inviting.
Mood and Tone
When it comes to planning a lobby or a concept of a lobby, everything really starts from the mood and tone. Which mood and tone should you select? Do these choices depend on trends? You can answer these questions by looking at what your hotel plans are already going to be. The hotel strategy, positioning and the brand you are looking to build will dictate what kind of lobby you are looking at.
Naturally, you have to take other things into consideration such as the space you have for the lobby, the location you are in and cultural factors but these things affect the mood and tone as much as the mood and tone affects them.
Market research among your target audience really helps define this mood and tone. You can confirm your assumptions or make changes if the research suggests otherwise. Ultimately, you need to set up your lobby to be open and inviting, exclusive and regal or a professional-looking lobby that corporate customers might prefer.
Creating an Atmosphere
A hotel lobby is an active and lively place and that is one crucial aspect of a lobby. Customers that are walking into lobbies that are empty and dead will not want to stop for too long. Sure, the mood in the lobby can be appropriate and the customer might appreciate this but the truth is, this is not enough.
Music in the lobby is an important factor in creating this atmosphere. You can choose easy-listening instrumental music, internationally-inflected world music or chilled out hip-hop beats for a younger crowd. Music provides an energy that fades into the background and needs to conform to the mood you have chosen to pursue.
The colours and lighting of the lobby definitely help add to the atmosphere of the lobby. It is important that the colours and lighting don’t clash. Open lobbies can try to add more daylight through glass facades while other lobbies can look to mimic a more intimate space, with low lighting and very relaxed music.
Make sure your lobby has a great mix of important atmospheric factors that will make a good impression on visitors. Do you need assistance with coming up with concepts and interiors for your lobby? Get in touch with us at Soho Hospitality to learn how we can help you with hotel interior design in Bangkok or anywhere else in the world.
