Hotel furniture for intensive use: what to look for before you order

A chair in a hotel restaurant gets moved dozens of times on a busy day. A bed gets a different guest every night. Furniture for a hotel therefore has to endure more than furniture at home. Yet we still regularly see purchasing decisions made on looks and price. The bill then arrives after two years, in the form of worn-out upholstery and loose joints.

Wear resistance of fabrics

For upholstery, we look at the Martindale value. This indicates how many rubbing cycles a fabric can withstand before the fibres wear out. For a living room, 20,000 is more than sufficient. For a hotel chair, we recommend a minimum of 50,000, and for a lobby or breakfast area, preferably more. Lightfastness also matters. A fabric next to a south-facing window can discolour within a single season.

Fire resistance and certification

A hotel is subject to stricter fire safety requirements than a home. In the Netherlands, Germany and Austria, different standards apply for upholstery and foam. On an international project, we therefore check what applies per country. Our background helps with this: Interiora started out designing and producing children’s furniture according to European safety standards. Providing certificates upon delivery is simply part of the job for us.

Construction that can take a knock

A frame of solid wood or steel, glued and doweled joints, and legs that can be replaced without having to write off the entire chair. These are the things you don’t see in a photo. So always ask about the construction of the frame and test a sample model in practice. We prefer to place a chair in an existing restaurant for a few weeks before putting the entire series into production.

Reordering three years later

Hotels expand, rooms get renovated, and sometimes something simply breaks. Then you want to be able to reorder the same model in the same colour. Because we produce in-house, our models remain available and we keep the specifications of every project on file. A hotel that later adds a wing can thus order the same chairs as in the first phase, in the same fabric and colour.

Maintenance in daily practice

Housekeeping doesn’t have time for furniture that’s difficult to clean. A smooth finish without deep seams, removable cushions and a coating that can withstand cleaning agents save minutes per room every day. Discuss this with the cleaning team in good time. They know exactly which corners collect dust.

Would you like to know how our collection scores on these points? At the showroom in Kesteren (2,000 m²), you can view and test the fabrics and frames yourself.