Hotel furniture has possibly a more central role in ensuring customer satisfaction than is the case in any other hospitality-related discipline.
From the moment they enter your establishment, customers are interacting with furniture - waiting on a chair in reception, grabbing a drink in your bar area, dining in your restaurant, and of course sleeping in one of your rooms.
So how can you make sure you buy hotel furniture that delivers on all of these different needs, for all-round customer satisfaction?
The answer is that you must think like a hotelier in the bedroom, a publican in the bar, a caterer in the restaurant, and a customer in all of these locations and beyond.
We have all stayed in a hotel at some point, and this is usually particularly true of those who have gone into the industry themselves, so make sure you are drawing on your own past experiences of what works and what does not.
As a hotelier, you might prefer to have your furniture fixed into position, so you do not have to continually drag it back into the desired layout after guests have moved it around.
But the very fact that they move it is evidence that flexibility is needed, so put yourself in the customer's shoes and ensure there is versatility in your seating layout, whether in your reception area, bar or restaurant.
A few lightweight chairs or stools can encourage customers to choose these to move around, avoiding the risk to them and you of dragging a heavy armchair into a new position.
In the bedrooms, the same principles apply - make sure there is seating that is easy to move, particularly if your rooms have televisions in them, so guests are not forced to try and watch the screen from whatever fixed position the bed or sofa has been placed in.
Restaurant furniture should generally be fairly formal, with straight-backed chairs to keep diners comfortable throughout their meal.
And in the bar, a variety of tables with chairs and small, lightweight stools again ensures seating can be reconfigured for any size of group, while a few bar stools at the bar itself could be welcomed by lone guests keen to chat to your bar staff if they have nobody else to talk to during their evening.