Hi everyone-Dave Goetzinger has been busy with his local distributor training (interested?) so I am filling in as his guest blogger. My name is Amy Vigneux and I am the Marketing Communications Manager for our door and frame division. Thanks for visiting!

Have you stayed in a hotel this year? If so, what made the experience enjoyable for you? Perhaps you were greeted at the front entrance by friendly hotel staff, and checked into your room where you noticed the stunning door hardware installed on rich, warm wood doors. You also may have noticed that you didn’t hear your neighbors in the next room, thanks to acoustical door openings paired with sound absorbing wall and ceiling panels. These details were given careful consideration by builders and designers.

According to a report issued in August 2014 by Lodging Econometrics, there are currently 3,311 hospitality projects in the pipeline, equating to more than 420,000 guest rooms (www.hotel-online.com). The hospitality industry has experienced a comprehensive recovery from past years, with Hilton, Marriott, and InterContinental groups confident and eager to host guests.

With travel on the rise, hotels are taking a special interest in guest experience, especially in the quality of guest rooms. Jan McKenzie, director of national accounts at ASSA ABLOY reiterates that “Clear trends in the hospitality industry are the use of social media for customer feedback and the variety of brands when choosing a property. This makes it more important than ever to have safe functioning doors and hardware to protect and please the hotel guest.” Creating a welcoming environment is easy to do with doors, frames, and decorative hardware from ASSA ABLOY Group Brands. Door openings, often just as beautiful as they are functional, can be a crucial part of a building’s overall design concept.

As guests come in and out of these rooms on a regular basis, high use issues should be taken into consideration. Hotel management wants to ensure that rooms and other guest areas are ready at all times. Sandy Matheny, director of decorative openings for ASSA ABLOY explains that durable can be decorative: “It may not be a trend by definition, but one characteristic intrinsic to successful hospitality finishes and fixtures is durability. But durable finishes and fixtures in hospitality environments need to look great, too. So ASSA ABLOY’s commercial grade 1 decorative door hardware and beautiful, durable Thermal Fused doors are ideal for guest rooms and common areas. Beyond that, we know that barn doors are replacing traditional swinging doors at guest room baths. It’s a smart, space-saving solution that looks terrific. Maiman’s glass lite stile and rail doors and PEMKO’s barn door sliding hardware systems are durable, aesthetically superb, and absolutely ideal for these applications.”

Starting with the door, The Maiman Company manufactures thermal fused wood doors in many standard face colors to help with the warmth of the guest space. By thermally fusing the decorative paper to the wood core, the chance for delaminating is eliminated. This surface is highly scratch and impact resistant, a must for high use areas such as guest rooms. The door’s 42 pound density core requires no additional blocking for mounting, meaning there will be no telegraphing on the door’s surface. The door is also edge banded on all sides so that even the tops and bottoms of the door can be wiped clean without warping from the liquid of mops or cleaning products. The Maiman Thermal Fused door offers STC (Sound Transmission Class) ratings of 32-46, ensuring safety and comfort of guests. The variety of finish and color choices for this door helps to match the design theme of the hospitality environment. The Maiman Company guarantees color and pattern consistency, an attribute that is perfect for guest rooms, where all openings must look cohesive.

For designers looking to add green attributes to their built environment, this door is GREENGUARD Gold certified, has issued a Health Product Declaration, is FSC certified, and contains No Added Urea Formaldehyde. The Maiman Company also participates in a product end of life recycling program, in collaboration with Habitat for Humanity ReStores.

What would a guest room with beautiful doors be without decorative hardware to compliment it? Rockwood Manufacturing offers expert products such as custom and standard door pulls, push and pull bars, door stops and bolts, kick plates, coat hooks, and specialty door trim that are designed to pair perfectly with the wood doors from The Maiman Company. Rockwood specializes in custom machining, corporate identity, custom casting, and custom leather accessories, making for endless possibilities that cater to each hotel’s character and/or theme.

As Ms. Matheny mentioned, another ASSA ABLOY Group Brand, PEMKO, recently introduced a new architectural solution, a Stainless Steel sliding track hardware system that provides a stylish and modern way to hang sliding glass or wood doors. Sliding doors are being used more now for interior guest room bathrooms, especially in hotel rooms where space is at a premium. This new system pairs beautifully with products from Rockwood as well as other ASSA ABLOY Group Brand hardware companies such as Corbin Russwin, SARGENT, and Yale.

Along those same lines, Corbin Russwin, SARGENT, and Yale also offer a tubular lock that is typically used in interior guest rooms. This lock is designed for ease of installation and exceeds the expectations of the most demanding architects and design professionals. This lock series can be used with the vast offering of designer levers offered specifically for high end guest rooms.

To complete the stunning guest space, sound experts at CertainTeed Corporation have teamed up with ASSA ABLOY Group Brands for an industry-first collaboration to address acoustical challenges in hospitality settings — a critical factor in ensuring strong guest satisfaction. Representing global leadership in door opening solutions, gypsum board, ceilings and insulation solutions, the collaboration leverages world-class building science and technical expertise to create recommendations for interior spaces that meet or exceed the most stringent acoustical requirements.

Through preliminary research, the collaboration has demonstrated significant acoustical improvements by creating a holistic solutions that integrates CertainTeed’s SilentFX® noise-reducing gypsum board, Sustainable Insulation® fiberglass batt insulation and Symphony® m mineral fiber ceiling panels with door and frame systems, including components, from ASSA ABLOY Group Brands CECO Door, CURRIES, PEMKO or SMP Specialty Doors. Each of the design configurations align with targeted Sound Transmission Class (STC) ratings as well as other stringent testing and certification requirements.

If the many options for hospitality seem overwhelming, there are some one-stop options that aid in the decision making process. The ASSA ABLOY Good Design Studio is an online resource that showcases the endless span of options for beautiful doors, frames, and hardware. Many design inspirations can be found on this website. If you’d like the opportunity to journey into the world of Good Design, the ASSA ABLOY Decorative Openings Showroom highlights the collection of aesthetic openings. With displays featuring a full range of doors, frames, and hardware in many styles and finishes, there’s plenty of inspiration to create high-performance openings that complement your aesthetic vision.

The next time you step into a hotel, observe and appreciate the thought and detail that went into the design and features in your room. These products- the doors, frames, locking hardware, walls, and ceilings are all designed collaboratively, to provide the hotel guest the utmost in experiences.