Hotels in India are increasingly moving away from plain and simple wall finishes to the bold and beautiful ones that are highly functional and environment-friendly. By Rituparna Chatterjee
Wall finishes have always been silent contributors to crafting the overall experience for hotel guests. They not only elevate the guests’ mood but also provide a feeling of home away from home. In recent times many hotels are seen opting for bolder colours, textures, patterns and finishes. “In the past couple of years, we have noticed that the hotel industry in India has become experimentative and bold to a certain extent when it comes to having a feature wall or a brighter shade, etc,” mentions Yatnesh Pandey, chief manager – marketing, Kansai Nerolac. Interestingly, it is the local hotels in Tier II and Tier III cities who are seen experimenting more with bolder and brighter wall finishes. “International hotel chains yet prefer to maintain their standards for the décor, including wall finishes, while local hotels, especially in Tier II and Tier III cities are more creative with regards to textures, paints, etc since their focus is to ensure better footfall/ check-in and better visibility in the market,” adds Prem Nath, principal architect and CEO, Prem Nath & Associates.
Colour me bright
Colour palettes are a significant part of wall finishes and it is important to choose the right hue and shade to create the right kind of mood. In a hotel, different colour palettes are applicable to different spaces. “For instance, for a soothing lush effect for spas, we recommend refreshing green hues, accents of warm deep greens, lush forest greens. Whereas for spaces like bars and pubs, they need to have more vivid, bright, vibrant and peppy shades and hence the colour tones of reds and magentas combined with backdrops of golden, grey and browns are best recommended. As for the rooms, physically soothing colours such as pink, peaches and pale blues are still popular options for standard bedrooms,” mentions Pandey, adding that, orange is a colour that symbolises energy and fun. The more lighter the shades in orange like peaches and coral, the more soothing they are; the more you move towards the brighter tones of orange, the more sensual they become and this is quite an attractive quality to have in select bedrooms. Coral, salmon and other versions of orange work well for a bedroom as well as for restaurants. Combined with its complementary colour blue, orange can create a very classy combination. Besides the traditional colours, metallic paints and textures, used selectively in spaces, can add a rich quality to a room.
Apart from colour palettes, patterns and textures also need to work in synthesis to create a perfect visual experience for hotel guests. “Patterns tend to be large-scale and often geometric in urban areas and organic in resort areas. Less pattern, more colour and texture have become the norm for hotel brands. Guests usually have more time for exploring their senses and this is probably why hotel brands are easily letting go of visually upsetting patterns and embracing texture instead,” reveals Geetha Sudesh, director of services, Hyderabad Marriott Hotel & Convention Centre and Courtyard by Marriott Hyderabad. To create a perfect visual ambience, the hotel’s public spaces have been done up with spectrum paint, a textured wall finish which offers textures in myriad colours and are not just decorative, but are also durable, economical and adaptable to diverse climatic and varied surface conditions. “For rooms and corridors we have used wall fabric as they are easy to clean and maintain and are also fire retardant,” adds Sudesh.
Technologically rich
Considering the high amount of wear and tear hotel walls’ experience, paint companies are increasingly focusing on new, innovative paints that offer beauty along with durability. For instance, Dulux Superclean from the house of AkzoNobel India. “This technological breakthrough innovation has been voted as the ‘Product of the Year 2014’ in the paints category. Owning to its features of washability, superior stain protection and enhanced anti-fungal properties, this a fitting paint for high footfall places such as restaurants or hotels,” suggests Rajiv Rajgopal, director, decorative business, AkzoNobel India.
Last year Kansai Nerolac had introduced HD paints, the first range of premium interior emulsions in India. “It makes the colours on the walls look far brighter and cleaner than any other standard emulsion. The rich colours and fine quality of the paints beautifies the ambience of the room,” reveals Pandey. The technology behind the HD effect of Nerolac Impressions is the Micro Embedded Brightness Boosters (MEBB). “MEBB are the finest grades of extenders which are achieved from careful processing of the solid constituent and are added to the paint base. On addition of colour pigments MEBB gets locked in the colour particles and produces visibly brighter and cleaner colours along with high opacity making the colours on the substrate look a notch above the colours produced by standard paints. It also enlivens the colours, thus, making it truly HD,” he adds.
Back to nature
As guests become more environmentally and socially aware about their choices, hoteliers are incorporating many sustainable products including low VOC paints into their hotel decor. “We have eco-friendly products as a lot of hotels nowadays opt for them for their interiors. Our Impressions Eco Clean range is popular since the time it was launched in 2011. Apart from being eco-friendly its key features include odourless paint with low VOC, superior stain resistance quality and excellent washability. As for exterior paints, we have Excel Total which has low VOC. It is a technologically advanced exterior paint that is specially designed for application in extreme tropical conditions of high rainfall, humidity and heat. It is formulated with Japanese technology of Weather Defense Formula, which delivers all the important consumer benefits of excellent dust resistance and high water repellency,” explains Pandey.
Though the price difference between standard emulsion and eco-friendly paints is about 10-15 per cent, the demand for low VOC paints will continue to grow among hotels. “One of the trends that I see in the future is that hotels will move to more eco-friendly materials for wall finishes. There will also be a greater emphasis on using products or accents that are locally sourced,” predicts Sudesh. Giving a different perspective, Nath opines, “Contrary to the current trends – the future is white. And by saying white one doesn’t mean dull and boring – but different finishes of white, with wash of coloured LED lights. There is nothing as beautiful as a pearl, and the trend of pearl white has already started, with many products offering the whitest white shade in their product range, be it flooring, laminates, veneers, wall finishes, textures, and so on.”