HOTELS & HOSPITAL ITY
Meanwhile, the Bell Inn pub situated in Ticehurst, East Sussex has earned its own place on several websites after having installed urinals in the form of upturned tubas in the gents’ toilets.
One of the huge advantages of such visual washroom enhancements is the fact that they are eminently instagrammable. Images of these types of features can now be found on social media sites as well as in blogs, articles and even in YouTube videos. And the result is a great deal of free publicity for the venue.
Also boasting a set of highly photogenic washrooms is the Sketch restaurant in London’s Mayfair. Here the toilets take the form of enormous colour-changing pods. Another restaurant with “instagrammable” facilities is Shaka Zulu in Camden where the toilets are decorated with zebra prints and life-sized safari animal statues.
“One of the huge advantages of visual washroom enhancements
is the fact that they are eminently Instagrammable.”
Some washroom providers use their facilities to shock rather than awe. At the Rabbit Hole bar near Santa Clarita in California, for example, the washrooms have been themed on the horror film The Shining. An image of Jack Nicholson’s face leers out at the visitor in a stark white room that has been liberally splattered with fake blood.
Meanwhile at the Bonneville bar in London, the toilets of this darkly atmospheric venue feature Victorian plumbing, old marine lamps and a ghostly soundtrack of chants and whispers.
And in the ladies’ washrooms of the trendy California Katsuya sushi restaurant in Los Angeles, women have been startled to see an eerie hologram geisha face appear fleetingly in the mirror as they wash their hands after using the loo.
However, there are plenty of hospitality venues that are bent on providing a less unsettling, more impressive washroom experience. The ladies’ loos at the exclusive London Ritz for example are luxuriously appointed with pink panelling, occasional tables and chaise-longues.
Similarly the women’s washrooms at London’s exclusive club Annabel’s feature pink onyx basins in the shape of oyster shells plus gold swan taps and Murano glass light fittings. And again in the ladies’, a free champagne mini- bar operates in the washrooms of Beauty and Essex, a small exclusive restaurant chain in the US.
Besides generating social media posts and free publicity, impressive hospitality facilities have another important role. Studies show that washrooms play a significant part in the customer’s perception of the hotels, bars and restaurants they visit.
www.tomorrowsfm.com
For example, one Essity survey revealed that 90% of people felt the washroom played an important role in their overall impression of a hospitality facility. A total of 67% of respondents also felt that an attractively-designed washroom made their hotel or restaurant experience more pleasant.
And 42% of diners said they would always prefer to eat at a restaurant where the loos had been attractively designed.
But however aesthetically pleasing a washroom may be, impressive surroundings should never be delivered at the expense of the essential – in other words, cleanliness and hygiene. And the surveys we have conducted confirm this too.
Around 80% of respondents in one study said they believed a dirty restaurant washroom to be a likely reflection on standards in the kitchen. More than 75% of respondents also said they would not return to a restaurant that had a dirty washroom. And 25% said they would actually be prepared to walk out of a venue if the washroom were not clean.
In today’s smartphone-obsessed world, there is no longer any hiding place for sub-standard hospitality venues. More than half the respondents in our most recent study said they had at one time or another shared pictures of a restaurant they had visited on social media. This highlights the ongoing need to maintain high standards since any lapses could be broadcast instantly, often to very wide audiences.
Besides the need to maximise hygiene, talking point washrooms should also operate efficiently since any queueing or congestion will have an adverse effect on the washroom-user’s experience. So, dispensers should be highly functional, easy to clean, quick to refill and well stocked at all times.
Dispensers that naturally control the consumption of hand towels, toilet tissue and soap will prevent the products from running out too quickly. For example, all Tork washroom dispensers are designed to give out paper in single sheets and soap in measured doses.
Washroom providers keen to impress while also offering a high level of functionality can achieve this by installing a system such as the Tork Image Design Line of dispensers. The brushed stainless steel fascias and black trim create an immediate impression of luxury and glamour while| the dispensers are easy to wipe clean and naturally limit consumption.
As long as the social media craze continues, talking point washrooms are here to stay. And this trend is a positive one since washrooms that are quirky, attractive or glamorous will be a pleasure to visit while also generating publicity for the venue.
However, when designing their fantastical washrooms, hospitality chiefs need to keep a close eye on the essentials – namely, cleanliness, hygiene and efficiency.
www.tork.co.uk www.essity.co.uk
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