Outdoor experience is hot topic in hotel sector too

Eating, drinking, meeting, resting and even sleeping: outside but sheltered

Tourist, businessman, trade fair visitor, ... as a hotel guest, you demand the best service every time. A friendly welcome, clean rooms, a nice breakfast or dinner, a cosy bar and a wide range of extra facilities, such as a swimming pool, wellness or fitness. All these elements help determine the reputation and rating of a hotel. Guests also attach increasing importance to the outdoor experience. A cosy terrace with bar, restaurant and seating area or a meeting room in the garden: outdoors but still protected from sun, wind, rain or cold. This takes the quality of a hotel stay to an even higher level.

A hotel has long since ceased to be a collection of rooms. Of course, most people still come there to spend the night during holidays or a business trip. But you can also just have something to eat there or take part in a meeting or an event. Hotel operators do all they can to make the stay as pleasant as possible for each guest. That increasingly includes the outdoor experience at. After all, people now want to spend as much time as possible outside, even when they are away from home. 

Just like at home, it is essential that bars, restaurants and hotels extend the atmosphere and comfort from inside to outside. This includes, first and foremost, appropriate furniture and the necessary lighting and heating. In the past, furnishing a terrace consisted of a few identical tables and chairs, which were stacked and pushed aside at the end of the day. Today, there are many more options, allowing you to divide the available space into different zones. 

For the dining area, manufacturers offer an extensive catalogue of low tables and chairs. High tables with bar stools are then ideal for the bar, while guests may prefer to sit in the lounges of a cosy seating area for a cosy chat with a drink and snack. The various manufacturers and distributors are happy to advise which furniture is best suited to each application. This furniture is available in a wide variety of materials - wood, metal, PVC, fabric-covered or not - and in a wide range of colours to perfectly match façade and interior. The atmosphere often also depends on the lighting on and around the tables and the possibility of opening parasols to warm the terrace if it suddenly starts to rain or it does get a bit colder. This way, guests use the outdoor space a little longer. 

Hotel operators want to go even further and turn their outdoor spaces into cosy spots where guests can sit sheltered from sun, rain, wind or cold all year round while enjoying a drink, lunch or dinner, meeting or attending an event. A terrace canopy offers an ideal solution for creating your own customised personalised outdoor space. Modern and minimalist, romantic and familiar or rural and cottage - a pergola suits every architectural style.

The structure consists of elegant, robust aluminium profiles, available in a wide range of colours. Depending on the building situation, they are built against the façade with posts at the front, integrated between two walls without posts or free-standing on four posts. Thus, the available space can be divided as desired with separate canopies for bar, restaurant and/or seating area. One can even realise a meeting room in the hotel garden or create a complete hotel room under the bare sky. It is also possible to link different modules - often both in length and width - thus covering larger areas or creating different spaces next to each other. Think of an area for outdoor cooking in combination with a buffet room and a dining area, and linked to an area where the DJ can do his thing. So you can easily organise a full event or even a wedding party in the open air, but still protected. 

Like the number of players, the options with patio covers have increased over the years. As a customer, for example, you can choose from a wide range of roofs. Besides fixed roofs made of sandwich panels, glass or wood, there is a multitude of movable solutions with a solar or rainproof fibreglass folding fabric, an electrically sliding roof fabric, rotating slats, and even tilting and sliding slats. Some manufacturers offer systems to combine slats and glass in a roof or the possibility to choose a different roof type for several coupled modules. The selection of an appropriate roof often goes hand in hand with the desired light in the building. While tilting slats remain in place at all times, creating a certain shade and barrier, retracted or folded cloths, slats that are opened and a glass roof more easily allow a wider incidence of light.  

Dealers and manufacturers are also developing a variety of solutions to close off pergolas. Customers opt for outdoor curtains or an integrated windproof screen, as well as wooden (sliding) walls or (sliding) frames with slats in powder-coated aluminium and natural greying wood, or a combination of both materials. Fixed windows, glass folding and sliding walls or a combination of different elements, such as a glass wall with curtains or screens, are also possible. 

Most patio covers are equipped with rain gutters and drainage systems, invisibly and elegantly integrated into the structure. When it comes to lighting, too, you can let your inspiration run wild: from RGB strips and (dimmable) LED lighting in posts, beams and/or slats to even a complete canopy of light in the roof. This way, you always create an appropriate atmosphere. Moreover, patio covers are also equipped with separate or integrated heating elements and speakers, USB ports, power points, etc. Hotel owners always get a suitable patio cover tailored to their application and needs, allowing guests to enjoy the outdoors all year round. Bars and restaurants can also accommodate more people at the same time. In short: an interesting solution without major conversion work.