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Oct 12, 2011 | 6:28 am

#1

parvezdewan

Join Date: Oct 2011

Posts: 35

Hotel Mattresses

I am an Indian on a sabbatical from my job as the CEO of India’s ITDC/ Ashok group of hotels, which used to be India’s biggest hotel chain but has now dropped to perhaps no.4. I am posting this article in the hope that you will correct me wherever I am out of date or am factually wrong OR have missed some important point OR if you have examples to illustrate or any information or experiences of any kind.
If you think that I have given irrelevant details, do please point them out. On the other hand if you would like to see more or my research on hotels across the world, I will be happy to post articles on flatscreen TVs in hotels, the cable channels that they offer, ...many more. (I have also started a thread called Hotel loyalty cards/ programmes by posting a very long [and, I hope, comprehensive] article on the subject)
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Mattresses

by Parvez Dewan

Even the ultra-budget Tune Hotels have spring mattresses. Latex and other foam mattresses belong to the mid-20th century. However, a number of hotels have opted for tempurpedic beds (John Rutledge, Sanctum). These are made of a NASA-discovered and Sweden-developed material called tempur. Marriott’s B-list hotels use foam mattresses. East Hamburg gives guests the option of sleeping on waterbeds. The ‘sweet night’ mattresses of Ducs D'Anjou are made of bamboo fibre.

Spring mattresses:The coil count—the number of coils in a king-sized spring mattress—at select hotel chains is 800 (Crowne Plaza, Marriott’s A-list hotels), 848 (Four Seasons, Hilton), 899 (Sheraton), 900 (Westin) and 939 (Ritz-Carlton).

The ‘thickness’ or height of spring-mattresses is 11 inches (Marriott’s A hotels), 11¼ inches (Ritz-Carlton), 11½ inches: (Crowne Plaza [with foam “topper”], Sheraton) ,12½ inches; Hilton [with pillow top], Westin), 13 inches (Hyatt) and 13½ inches (Four Seasons [with pillow top].
Marriott’s B hotels typically have 7 inch mattresses. Its Residence Inn, Courtyard and Fairfield Inn brands have moved from four inches to nine-inch-thick mattresses.

The brands used are Jamison foam (Marriott’s B hotels), Sealy Posturepedic () (Comfort Suites in Tyler Texas, Day's Inn in Leeds Alabama, Hotel St. Francis in Santa Fe, Hyatt, Ritz-Carlton, Sheraton, Westin), Sealy (Four Seasons, Mirage Resort , both custom designed), Serta Perfect Sleeper (Crowne Plaza, Hilton, Marriott’s A list) and Simmons (La Quinta Inn).
The hotels mentioned adopted the above specifications between 2005 and 2010.
In addition the hotel should ensure that there are air chambers in the mattress and that superior foam is used. The number of layers of foam also matters.

Custom-designed mattresses: Manufacturers design special mattresses even for 209-room, standalone hotels like Benjamin. Serta created ‘convoluted foam cushioning’ with layers of fibres quilted to the mattress to give the surface of the Benjamin Bed a sumptuous feel.

Pillow top mattresses: An extra layer, around an inch thick and made of a soft material is fixed above the—say 9½”—spring mattress, over its entire surface. Because mattresses should be periodically turned over—and around—an identical layer is fixed below as well, making this particular mattress 11½” high. Even budget Microtels use pillow top mattresses.

Posturepedic innerspring adjusts the mattress according to the weight of the person lying on it.

Dirty secrets: People generally hate hotel food. However, when it comes to the mattresses that hotels have been providing in the 21st century, almost every hotel (including ours) has diehard fans who swear on some website or the other that they ‘had the best night's sleep ever’ in that hotel.

And yet the dirty secret is that i) except for some of the chains mentioned (and ours) most hotels use cheap mattresses. Posturepedic or foam, they go for the bottom-end. They add a topper—normally a cotton topper and sometimes a pad made of down–to give guests the ‘best sleep’ of their lives.

ii) Many of the best-known mattress manufacturers, because of their oligopoly, are not upfront about their prices. (E.g. ‘We do not publish mattress prices on our web site because the mattress companies have asked us not to.’) They modify existing models slightly and sell them to hotels under new names to make sure that people who want the same models for their homes cannot buy them easily. Domestic users have to settle for what they think is the nearest equivalent model, and pay more. (E.g. [This model is] ‘comparable to the Westin Hotel “Heavenly Bed”.’)

iii) Meanwhile, many hotels sell their ‘unique’ models, through their hotel shops and websites, at between $1,500 and $2,000 apiece (2009 prices). To make things worse they are likely to sell the topper separately.

iv) There are three broad types of foam: memory, latex and polyurethane. Latex, in turn, can be natural or artificial. Memory is overpriced for what it delivers. Polyurethane is the cheapest and is the one used by many hotels, including one of the chains mentioned, because that chain can then afford to change mattresses after a few years. Besides, like latex, polyurethane feels good.

v) Hotels (including ours) replace only some mattresses at a time, typically around a third. Manufacturers deliver even those in lots spread over a period. Therefore, different rooms are likely to have mattresses of different vintages, even models. [/FONT]

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