Managing guest expectations by positively positioning our windowless rooms across our Premier Inn and hub estate.

Issue
We have a high number of rooms across our hub and Premier Inn estate that are classified as ‘windowless’ due to the limitations with natural light. The current model is a mix of mood-lighting solutions including back-lit light box that’s operated on the same circuit as the room’s main lights, circadian light wells or a vinyl/frosted window covering. As a key priority, we needed to communicate our windowless proposition more openly to ensure we are managing guest expectations on what they can expect for their stay, be upfront and own that we market windowless rooms and positively position the guest benefit to not having a window.

Insight
We were receiving a number of complaints from guests about the lack of pre-stay transparency around our windowless rooms. Some guests felt there was a lack of communication on this as well as the benefits (or lack) of having a windowless room.

From using different names for these rooms, displaying icons and providing informative descriptions about the benefits to charging a lesser bookable rate than their Standard rooms, competitor analysis showed a mix of how hotels communicated and positioned their windowless rooms.

Idea
Ambient rooms
On an emotional and benefit-led angle, we wanted to focus on how our lighting solutions made our guests feel. Our hub ambient rooms create feelings of tranquillity and peaceful wellbeing through calming mood lighting that makes for a cosy and peaceful stay, helping guests sleep and wake up easier.

We wanted to strike a balance between communicating both the functional and emotional benefits of our windowless rooms. Calling them ‘window-free’ felt more positive sounding than ‘windowless’ with the latter potentially sounding like these rooms are without something or ‘less than’ another room. Window-free overcomes a perceived negative.