In past years, particularly in city hotels, there was a fairly widespread tendency to convert common areas into saleable space.
One of the obvious consequences of this approach was a reduction of living space. Nowadays, we are witnessing a growing revival of aggregative spaces. This trend is shared by new generation budget hotels, as well as lifestyle and boutique hotels.
In order to create a feeling of warmth and comfort, numerous hotels furnish their lounges and common areas with attractive bookcases. After visiting a couple of hotels, very different from each other, though both featuring a small book section, I wondered if preference should be given to decorative or practical purposes.
Phrased in this way, the answer may seem to be obvious. My feeling, however, is that many hotels use books as decoration rather than to improve their guest experience.
Beautiful areas furnished with beautiful books. But how many guests will make it to read “War and Peace” in three days? True, there exists speed reading, but there is a limit to everything.
It may be a good idea, therefore, to create a library of short-story and photographic books, clearly without forgetting books written in English. Let’s make sure that our guests can enjoy the opportunity we offer.
Of course, we may have some doubts: are our guests really going to have a half-hour’s time to read? Is a library necessary, when so many people use their tablets?
These are all legitimate doubts, but if there is a book reading space in the hotel, or if we have decided to create one, let’s make sure that it can be used!
In this way, it will become part of a living experience, not just a decoration. Anybody may feel like spending a half an hour enjoying some reading in the hotel, and short stories are perfectly in line with the average hotel stay duration.
In the end, the purpose is to improve our guest experience, not just to display a stylish reading corner!
The quality of our customer experience can be pursued through different avenues. This may be one of them.
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