Why hotel sound should be designed before opening day
A useful sound plan begins with a consideration of ordinary situations and provides each space in your hotel with a clear purpose.
By Dirk Persch
A hotel’s sound deserves a place in the design brief. By the time the first guest arrives, decisions about room layouts, materials and equipment have already shaped what that guest will hear. Leaving music until the final days before opening makes it harder to give each space a clear purpose.
Imagine arriving after a long journey. At reception, you need to hear a name and a room number. In the lounge, you may want conversation or a quiet place to wait. Later, the bar can offer a different pace. A useful sound plan begins with those ordinary situations and gives the team a way to respond to them.
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Start with the guest journey
I would begin with a floor plan and a walk through the day. For each area, ask what guests are trying to do, how long they are likely to stay and what else they will hear. At breakfast, crockery, coffee equipment and conversation are already part of the room. Music joins that existing environment.
Write the answers in plain language. Reception needs clear speech and an unhurried welcome. A restaurant needs an atmosphere that suits its service and allows conversation. A spa waiting area may call for little additional sound. These descriptions give designers and operators something specific to test.
The property can still have a recognisable musical character across its public spaces. That character might come from the texture of the instruments, the balance between vocals and instrumental pieces, or the pace of the selections. Each room should have enough freedom to serve its own guests.
Make the physical space part of the conversation
Bring the interior designer, acoustic adviser, audio installer and operations team into the discussion early. Include whoever will shape the music programme. Their decisions overlap at practical points: where speakers sit, how sound travels between spaces and who can adjust each area.
During commissioning, listen from a reception desk, a dining table and the edge of a lounge. Check places where guests or staff spend time, including seats close to a speaker. Test with service activity underway. An empty room gives only part of the picture.
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Music should never be assigned the task of fixing every unwanted sound. If the room makes conversation difficult, review the room and its equipment with the appropriate specialists.
Turning up the soundtrack may simply make the receptionist work harder. Record problems during the walkthrough and give someone responsibility for resolving them.
Give guests room to choose
Silence belongs in the plan. Some guests enjoy music throughout their stay; others want relief from it. Consider whether a guest can find a quieter seat, whether a bar spills into a neighbouring lounge and whether a transition between spaces feels abrupt.
In bedrooms and suites, I would make guest control the starting point. Optional music should have an obvious off switch. A welcome sequence should be easy to stop, and staff should know how to explain the controls. Branded residences require particular care because people live with the same environment repeatedly.
Sound can also express a connection to place, but this requires judgement. Local musicians and cultural advisers can help a team understand context and avoid reducing a destination to a familiar musical stereotype. Make room for contemporary local work where it fits the property and the intended use.
Write a brief the team can operate
A musical idea needs an operating plan. Set out which areas have separate controls, how the programme changes through the day and who can make adjustments. Give staff a clear route for reporting a problem. The duty manager should be able to deal with a loud speaker or unsuitable selection without searching for the person who originally configured the system.
Agree how music will be reviewed and refreshed. Staff hear the programme for much longer than many guests, so their observations about repetition are useful. Review transitions between breakfast, afternoon and evening service as carefully as individual tracks. A change in atmosphere should make sense to someone who remains in the room.
Include procurement in the handover. Keep a record of the music source, the agreed scope of use and the person responsible for checking permissions with the relevant provider or rights specialist. This gives the operator a contact and a record to revisit when a venue or service changes.
Listen again after opening
Before opening day, run a rehearsal with the people who will operate the hotel. Have someone check in while others talk nearby. Sit through part of a meal. Move between the lobby and the bar. Ask staff to change a setting and restore it. Those exercises reveal whether the plan works in everyday use.
For an existing hotel, start with one space and a defined review period. Keep a short record of the settings, the time of day and what staff or guests report. Ask specific questions about conversation, repetition and comfort. Treat those observations as feedback for that property; they do not establish a universal formula or prove a revenue increase.
A good handover leaves the team with a clear brief, working controls and responsibility for the next review. Sound then becomes something the hotel can manage deliberately as occupancy, seasons and guest needs change.
Dirk Persch is Founder & Creative Director of PERSANO®, a Germany-based studio focused on Sound Identity for luxury hospitality. His work explores how sound can function as part of guest-experience design across arrival, lobby, food and beverage, wellness, rooms and branded residences, with a focus on Europe, the Middle East and the GCC.
