Slips and falls are one of the very most common accidents in public-facing hospitality spaces, for both employees and guests. While you can’t control the wet weather outside that often leads to these types of accidents, you can mitigate your risk by upgrading your door mats! If you’re a medium-or-larger hotel with a high volume of foot traffic, standard door mats don’t cut it—you need heavy duty commercial entrance mats.
Mat Placement
Factors such as seasonal weather, your type of flooring, and whether you have single or double doors should be taken into consideration when determining where to place your main entrance mats. The right mat for your back-of-house, kitchen prep, and laundry areas most likely isn’t the right mat for your lobby and customer-facing areas! For example, your hot tub, locker rooms, pools, and shower areas should use appropriate drainage mats, like 3M Nomad 1500 and Nomad 3200. Although kitchens are also wet areas, these mats won’t do the job – you need something that’s resistant to grease, like our Competitor Series in orange nitrile rubber. Place mats strategically in places when transitioning from one surface to another, because many slip and fall accidents are caused by the different amount of traction available when moving from one flooring surface to another in different areas.
Mat Size
While you can walk into your local home improvement store and choose from their selection of entrance mats, there are two main problems: firstly, they’re not on the low-end of the commercial spectrum…they’re residential! They’re not meant for commercial duty at all! Those mats are simply not durable or absorbent enough to last in a commercial environment and will wear out within weeks. Secondly, off-the-shelf mats simply aren’t large enough to get the job done. Off-the-shelf matting is limited to standard sizes, or (at best) standard widths with a variable length. The Carpet & Rug Institute’s guidelines state that you need at least 12-15 feet of matting to remove adequate dirt from incoming foot traffic!
Mat Customization
While heavy duty commercial entrance mats can be purchased in a variety of sizes, it is best to have your mat custom-made to fit the contours of your lobby or the unique needs of the area it is placed. All of our Grizzly FX and Kermode mats are exactly this: made to order, and custom fit to your dimensions! In addition to being the exact length and width you need, you can also have your hotel’s logo inlaid directly into your mats. Inlaid logos are vastly superior to printed mats and the design element will never smudge or fade.
Additional Matting Considerations
Although you can’t completely prevent accidents, you can do your due diligence in reducing their likelihood with appropriately-placed entrance mats. Hotel lobby mats that are adequately sized and sturdy enough to withstand your traffic load will help to keep your lobby clean, provide comfort, guide patrons, and reduce flooring wear in areas of heavy foot traffic. Your lobby mats should be large enough to absorb enough water to keep the rest of your lobby floor dry even in the wettest weather for your climate. Although entrance matting is designed to retain water, if the mat is too small the water won’t be able to dry fast enough to do its job. On those days when even the largest mat won’t be enough, boost your mat’s performance with as-needed vacuuming using a wet/dry vacuum – this can “shortcut” your way to a mat that can return to service immediately and keep your floors cleaner and drier.
Source Floor aims to be your go-to provider of high-quality, custom-made hotel floor mats. Reach out today to discuss how our custom mats can improve safety in your hotel.