The creation of a prototype guestroom scheme often is the result of a collaborative process involving multiple hospitality designers, both inside and outside of a hotel brand’s own corporate design team. In most cases, the room scheme clearly indicates design intent based on various factors such as the hotel’s target guests and their demographics. With a clear design intent established, the corporate design team can make final tweaks to the draft prototype a bit, including value-engineering its FF&E to achieve the best price point possible while still maintaining a quality product and the most current design.

Having a prototype room scheme has its benefits. It can be easier and faster for a hotelier to replace FF&E product, especially if stocked domestically. With custom lighting, for example, a supplier may require you to place a minimum order quantity before it will produce replacement lamps. This is in contrast to pulling from stock or from a prototype’s running production line that can ship more quickly with fewer minimum order quantity restrictions.

Benefits of Having a Designer for a Prototype Room Scheme 

Although a brand design scheme is prototypical, there is hardly ever a hotel that is exactly like the prototype. Even for a new build, site conditions and local code requirements can alter the structure of the building or alterations may be necessary based on market needs.

For an existing hotel, implementing a prototype design often demands tailoring the scheme to as-built conditions, power locations, and the sizes of the guest rooms. A set of interior design drawings, at the very least, would help ensure that furniture will fit. An experienced designer can help navigate these alterations and customizations to ensure they align with brand standards.

For example, a hotel may have an existing headboard wall shorter than the current prototype room. Relocating, eliminating, or modifying the furniture may be necessary. In addition, not all prototype window treatment styles will work with existing window conditions. Many brands now require roller shades in guestrooms, but some existing windows may be too large or too long to accommodate that window treatment style.

In these cases, a designer can work directly with the hotel brand to determine the best solution that still exemplifies the scheme’s design intent. The brand’s corporate team will review, modify, and approve drawings submitted by a professional designer, just as with custom schemes. 

Risks of Not Having a Designer for a Prototype Room Scheme

Brand prototype guestroom schemes are not simply “plug-and-play” design solutions. In part, this is because hotels that may seem identical are actually very different assets with different construction environments. Each has its own dynamics and individual needs.