Hoteliers and designers have more options for hotel flooring than ever, but they also have more issues to be concerned about when selecting materials for their floors. Here are a few things to keep in mind:
1. Recycled Materials
Rick Marencic, design principal and studio leader at JCJ Architecture, said most innovations in flooring can be seen in products made from recycled materials, especially in wellness rooms and fitness centers. “Some examples include Ecore’s recycled rubber composite flooring and Zandur’s Sustain rubber cork flooring,” he said. While the technology for creating sheet flooring products like linoleum, cork and rubber has been available for decades, Marencic has seen recent trends in updating these traditional product lines to make them “more market-savvy and eco-efficient.”
2. Carbon Neutral
In June, flooring company Tarkett launched its Inspired Nature collection of modular carpet and coordinating digitally printed luxury vinyl tile. The line, said Keesha Nickison, content manager at Tarkett, is certified carbon-neutral through the Carbonfree program and uses Tarkett’s Ethos Modular with Omnicoat Technology carpet backing. Ethos is made with polyvinyl butyral film made from recycled windshields and safety glass and has 48 to 64 percent overall recycled content. “We are really taking a holistic look at everything we’re doing from a health and wellness perspective,” Nickison said.
3. Safety First
Heidi Steele, founder of Surface Resources, recommends Mosa tiles for hotels, seen here at the Andaz Scottsdale Resort & Bungalows in Arizona. The line can be installed indoors, outdoors or under water thanks to a range of “safety surface” finish options and an ultra-low surface water absorption rate. “Significant stain resistance is another added benefit—even their whitest porcelain floor tiles are nearly impervious to staining, which means your tiles will require less effort to maintain,” she said.
4. Back to the Classics
Marencic said the four prominent flooring choices for the past several years have been carpet, luxury vinyl tile, large-format porcelain and wood-look porcelain plank. “Innovations in these four approaches are outpacing any market-driven desire for new materials,” he said. Carpet textures are now available at a “sharper price point,” he said, while the number of LVT trims and transition strips has grown “exponentially, making it easier to combine materials in a guestroom.” Large-format porcelain slabs can “rival natural materials” while the cost of porcelain wood plank has dropped.