NATIONAL REPORT—After the pandemic brought the hotel industry to a virtually unprecedented low last year, this year hospitality is poised for a significant post pandemic recovery.
The American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA) estimated that COVID-19’s impact on the travel industry in 2020 was about nine times of that from 9/11. Hotel room revenue was cut in half, from $167 billion to $85 billion. Hotels ran at about 44 percent occupancy in 2020, down from 66 percent in 2019.
According to AHLA’s State of the Hotel Industry 2021 Report, hotel occupancy in the United States will increase from 44 percent to 52 percent in 2021, and further to 61 percent in 2022. Room revenue will reach $110 billion in 2021 and $144 billion in 2022.
Travelers are hopeful too. In a survey of over 5,800 travelers, Travel Pulse found that nearly 70 percent of the participants want to travel in 2021, and many have accumulated vacation days from 2020 to use in 2021.
So, as the hotel industry begins to rebound, hotel owners and managers need to be making moves right now to upgrade their hotels for the influx of travelers. This goes beyond mandated cleanliness and sanitation.
More Noise as Occupancies Rise
With the coming surge of hotel guests, noise levels will rise due to increased
car, train, jet, and ship traffic (meaning more loud honking, tire squealing, train crossings, foghorns, etc.) as well as night-owl pool parties as guests pay a premium for the experience.
The challenge is that no matter how beautiful the hotel surroundings or convenient the location, the constant noise will grate on guests’ nerves, leaving them angry and sleepless. If management is lucky, guests may only demand to change to a quieter room. If not, they may check out early, demand a refund, or post bitter online reviews about excessive noise and unresponsive management.
In order to proactively handle the noise problem and ensure quiet, restful rooms that
will attract referrals, repeat business, and favorable reviews, hotel managers need to
resolve the main reason for indoor noise intrusion today: windows and sliding patio doors. Studies indicate that these structures let in most of the noise into rooms, since their design and construction are more susceptible to sound penetration than walls.
For those concerned about tackling climate change, the approach is also eco-friendly. Adding inner insulating windows also significantly improves energy efficiency and stops air infiltration without replacing existing windows.
Welcoming Peace and Quiet
When external noise is a problem, sometimes hotel owners and managers attempt to reduce it by replacing double pane windows or inserting sheets of Plexiglas. However, these products, available from various window suppliers, have a limited ability to reduce the noise.
Double or triple pane windows, for example, filter out only slightly more noise than single pane, if any. Although effective at insulating from external heat or cold, these products are not truly engineered for soundproofing.
“With double pane windows, the two pieces of glass within the frame vibrate like the two tynes of a tuning fork which actually creates more noise,” explains Randy Brown, President of Soundproof Windows, a national manufacturer of window and patio door soundproofing products. “Also, the air space for both double and triple pane windows does very little to retard the sound vibrations.”
Brown adds that much of the noise that enters through windows comes through leaking window seals. With age conventional window seals fail, so any partial relief experienced by replacing windows may be short-lived.
Post pandemic, to promote a tranquil setting for guests even in high-traffic urban centers, some hotels are turning to true soundproofing companies that have expertise engineering products used in the most noise sensitive environments in the world, recording studios.
A ‘Second Window’
The company has created a “second window” that can be installed easily in front of the existing windows. The product is designed specifically to match and function like the original window, no matter its design or whether it opens or closes.
This inner window essentially reduces noise from entering on three fronts: the type of materials used to make the pane, the ideal air space between original window and insert, and finally improved, long-lasting seals. The combination can reduce external noise by up to 95 percent.
“The first noise barrier is laminated glass, which dampens sound vibration much like a finger on a wine glass stops it from ringing when struck,” explains Brown. “An inner PVB layer of plastic further dampens sound vibrations.”
An air space of two to four inches between the existing window and the Soundproof Window also significantly improves noise reduction because it isolates the window frame from external sound vibrations.
Finally, the company places spring-loaded seals in the second window frame. “This puts a constant squeeze on the glass panels, which prevents sound leaks and helps to stop noise from vibrating through the glass,” explains Brown.
When choosing such soundproofed windows to ready a hotel for a post pandemic influx of guests seeking solace, Brown adds that the most objective measure of sound reduction is the window’s Sound Transmission Class (STC) rating. In this rating system, the higher the number the more noise is stopped.
Impressive Improvement in STC Rating
A typical rating for standard windows is 26 to 28, for example. The acoustic soundproof windows, by comparison, earn a 48 to 54 STC rating.
Since external noise can also enter sliding glass doors, which are common on ground floor hotel rooms or upper-level rooms with patios, similar soundproofing strategies can also be effectively applied in these applications.
Like the soundproof windows, a second sliding glass door can be added, but mounted either inside or outside an existing sliding glass door. This can eliminate up to 95 percent of external noise entering through the patio door.
Energy Efficient Windows
By adding an inner insulating window to existing windows, the approach also can also help hospitality managers reduce heat loss by 77% or more for single paned windows, while stopping air infiltration for further energy savings and greater comfort. Adding the inner window, in fact, provides an additional layer of insulation with better insulation values than the best double pane windows.
As the hotel industry recovers from the pandemic, making the effort to welcome guests again not only with improved cleaning practices but also with a quiet, restful, more energy efficient environment, free of aggravating outside noise will set the stage for a full recovery, repeat business, and word of mouth referrals.
For more information, contact Soundproof Windows, Inc. at (877) 438-7843; e-mail sales@soundproofwindows.com; or visit http://www.soundproofwindows.com.
