Hotel Flooring: Which Luxury Floors Are The Easiest To Maintain In High Traffic Areas

When guests check into a hotel, they’re looking for a luxurious escape from the demands of their daily lives. Whether traveling for business or pleasure, they expect their surroundings to offer a clean, inviting, upscale ambiance. They want to feel pampered.

This experience simply won’t happen if the flooring in your establishment has dust, dirt, stains, cracks, chips, or other forms of damage. Of course, maintaining pristine hotel flooring is no easy feat, especially in high-traffic areas like the lobby, hallways, and guest rooms—pretty much everywhere.

You must choose the right flooring. While hospitality carpeting is standard, it’s also the quickest to show grime due to affordable pricing and sound dampening qualities. With frequent replacement, you may find you’re spending a lot more with this strategy long-term.

Which luxury flooring will best meet the needs of your establishment and wow your guests? Hard flooring offers a much better solution, delivering not only durability but easier cleaning and maintenance. There are a few great options to consider.

Luxury Vinyl Plank Flooring

Vinyl flooring has long suffered notoriety as a cheap alternative to other hard flooring materials, but that was the flimsy sheet vinyl of old. Modern luxury vinyl plank flooring offers the luxury aesthetic of hardwood paired with desirable practical features like waterproofing and easy installation and maintenance, making it ideal for hospitality flooring.

Are you updating the lobby and hallways, creating a more upscale hotel room experience, or finally doing away with hard-to-maintain ceramic tile? You’ll find that LVP checks all of the boxes when it comes to attractive and cost-effective long-term solutions.

It’s time to eliminate grimy carpet tiles and grouted bathroom tile that never looks clean in favor of innovative, modern flooring that alleviates many of the worries associated with these typical hospitality flooring options.

Barrell Luxury Vinyl Planks from the Prescott Series deliver the luxury look you want, along with a slew of practical benefits. Colors range from medium to dark wood looks mimicking ashy weathered planks, rich reclaimed oak, dark and lustrous teak, and more.

These 9” x 60” vinyl planks look like real wood, with high variation in coloring and heavy graining and knots to effectively simulate the appearance of authentic hardwood.

However, LVP shines when it comes to functional concerns. It’s 100% waterproof, so you won’t have to worry if the shower curtain drips on the floor or guests fail to use the bath mat. LVP also includes a tough wear layer to prevent undue damage from heavy use.

Unlike other hard flooring materials, LVP tends to muffle footfalls. The easy-click floors install quickly, saving time and money, and pre-attached backing delivers surprisingly effective sound absorption while adding cushioned comfort underfoot.

It's hard to imagine a better choice for hospitality flooring with a dent warranty and a 15-year limited commercial warranty from MSI.

Waterproof Wood Flooring

Photo Credit: @CastleBespokeFlooring on Houzz

When a guest swings open the glass door to enter your lobby, you want to make an excellent first impression, and the warmth and luxury of rich, wood flooring welcomes everyone who crosses the threshold with an ambiance of old-world elegance.

Paired with granite countertops at the reception desk, plush seating in the lobby, and a modern color palette, the entry to your establishment will set the stage for a positive and fulfilling experience with your brand.

Of course, wood flooring isn’t ideal for every area in your hotel. While the look is certainly appealing, footfalls can echo wood flooring, upsetting guests on the floors below, so it may not be the best choice for guest rooms.

Laminate Flooring

Photo Credit: @CathersHomeFurniture+Interior on Houzz

Like LVT, laminate flooring has a bit of cushion, and it doesn’t tend to get as cold as other options, like tile flooring. It’s also more cost-effective than genuine hardwood floors but delivers a similar aesthetic.

Some laminates these days are so good, thanks to color, graining, variation, and even 3D texture, that they can be hard to tell apart from the real deal.

Because it closely mimics wood, laminate will look gorgeous paired with marble, granite, or quartz countertops, along with other high-end touches. Laminate is better at absorbing sound than hardwood but isn’t as durable as LVT. Unlike LVT, it isn’t waterproof. Maintenance is easy, as it can be easily swept, vacuumed, and even mopped.

Concrete

Photo Credit: @GreenGreenbergGreenHouse onHouzz

Concrete has quickly become a viable option for flooring in establishments that not only favor a modern, industrial approach to design but that want to embrace eco-friendly sensibilities.

It can be incredibly durable and cost-effective, and it requires very little maintenance once sealed. With regular sweeping, mopping, and waxing every few months, it can stand up to the wear and tear of foot traffic almost indefinitely.

In addition, it can be stained, stamped, and treated to look like a range of surface materials, from modern tile and natural stone to wood or antique leather, although it won’t necessarily feel like these surfaces. Because of this, you can ensure that it works with other elements in your design, from engineered quartz vanity tops to wood, metal, or glass components.

It’s also resistant to water and many forms of damage, so if a showerhead starts spraying water all over the bathroom, you won’t have to worry about ruining the flooring. With that being said, concrete can be cold and hard underfoot, and footsteps can ring out in large spaces.

When done wrong, concrete may be uneven or not appropriately set, impacting strength and durability. For this reason, you’ll definitely need to add plenty of rugs. In addition, professional installation is vital.

Choosing the right hotel flooring requires a thoughtful balance of function and aesthetics. And with so many modern options to consider, you’re sure to find the material that offers the strength, durability, sound absorption, visual appeal, and cost-effectiveness you’re looking for.

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