Cost per key by segment
| Segment | ₹ per key, ex-GST | Room size | What drives the number |
|---|---|---|---|
| Budget and economy | ₹6 – 10 L | 160 – 200 sq ft | Durable finishes, prefabricated bathroom pods, minimal public area |
| Midscale | ₹10 – 18 L | 200 – 280 sq ft | Full joinery, a proper bathroom, a restaurant and a small banquet |
| Upper-upscale | ₹18 – 35 L | 280 – 400 sq ft | Bespoke joinery, stone bathrooms, substantial public areas, spa |
| Luxury and resort | ₹35 L – 1 Cr+ | 400 – 900 sq ft | Bespoke everything, art budget, landscape, large public volumes |
| Service apartment | ₹8 – 16 L | 300 – 550 sq ft | A kitchenette and laundry per key; smaller public areas |
Ex-GST. Includes the key’s pro-rata share of corridors, lobby, F&B and back of house. Excludes land, structure, MEP plant and operating supplies.
The prototype room is the cheapest mistake you will make
The guest room module
A guest room is a sequence of four zones in about six metres of depth, and the proportions of those zones matter more than any finish.
- The entry zone. Door, wardrobe, luggage bench, minibar. Between 1,200 and 1,800 mm of depth. This is where the guest forms the first impression and where the housekeeping trolley has to reach.
- The bathroom. Usually opening off the entry zone, 45–70 sq ft. In budget and midscale hotels a prefabricated pod is faster, more consistent and cheaper above roughly 80 keys.
- The sleeping zone. Bed, side tables, the headboard wall, a desk or work surface. Allow 700 mm clear on both sides of the bed — housekeeping needs it even if the guest does not.
- The window zone. A chair, a table, the AC unit and the curtain track. This is the zone most often sacrificed and most missed.
- The services spine. Everything wet stacks vertically floor to floor, and the corridor carries the horizontal runs. Any room that breaks the stack costs far more than the others.
Public areas and the ratio
Public and back-of-house areas take 25–40% of the built area depending on segment, and a larger share of the budget than that proportion suggests, because they carry the bespoke work.
| Area | Budget hotel | Midscale | Upper-upscale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lobby and reception | 150 – 400 sq ft | 600 – 1,500 sq ft | 2,000 – 6,000 sq ft |
| All-day dining covers | None or 30 covers | 60 – 120 covers | 120 – 250 covers |
| Banquet and meeting | None | 1 room, 800 – 2,000 sq ft | Ballroom plus breakouts |
| Spa, gym, pool | Gym only, 200 sq ft | Gym 400 sq ft, pool optional | Full spa and pool |
| Back of house as % of total | 12 – 16% | 16 – 22% | 22 – 30% |
| Public area share of fit-out budget | 10 – 15% | 20 – 30% | 35 – 50% |
FF&E, and why it sets the programme
- Separate the packages properly. FF&E is loose furniture, fixtures and equipment; OS&E is operating supplies; the fit-out contract is everything fixed. Confusing the three is the most common source of a gap in a hotel budget.
- Long-lead items are ordered at concept, not at tender. Bathroom pods 14–20 weeks, custom carpet 12–18 weeks, decorative lighting 10–16 weeks, bespoke case goods 12–16 weeks. The programme is set by whichever of these is last.
- Specify to a performance standard, not a brand. Contract-grade upholstery at 40,000 Martindale rubs, carpet at a stated tuft density, and laminate at a stated abrasion class. Brands change; standards do not.
- Buy 3–5% attic stock of every finish and every loose item. In year three you will not be able to match a carpet, a laminate or a fabric, and a hotel with mismatched rooms loses rate.
- Mock up the bathroom separately. A bathroom mock-up catches more errors per rupee than any other prototype, because it is the densest part of the room.
- Plan the logistics of delivery. Two hundred rooms of furniture arriving at once needs a staging area, and most hotel sites do not have one. Phased delivery against an installation sequence is a contract requirement, not a courtesy.
The prototype room costs about the price of four keys and it saves the cost of twenty. Every operator who has skipped it has told us afterwards that they would not again.
Greenbox commercial fit-out lead
Refurbishing a live hotel
A renovation of an operating hotel is a logistics project with an interior design attached. It is done floor by floor, with a sealed hoarding, a dedicated service lift, night-restricted noisy work and a revenue calculation behind every decision.
- Work in vertical stacks, not horizontal floors, where the services allow it. It keeps the wet works in one riser and limits the number of floors out of service at once.
- Seal the working floor properly. A double-skin hoarding with a lobby, negative pressure on the working side, and a separate lift. Dust in a corridor is a guest complaint; dust in a restaurant is a closure.
- Fix the noisy window. Typically 10am to 4pm, agreed with the operator against occupancy patterns rather than construction convenience.
- Refurbish the prototype in low season and run it commercially for a month before committing to the rest.
- Count the rooms out of service as a cost. At ₹6,000 average daily rate and 70% occupancy, twenty rooms closed for ten weeks is roughly ₹58.8 lakh of lost revenue — frequently more than the saving from a slower, cheaper programme.
Durability standards that decide the five-year cost
A hotel room is used by roughly 250 different people a year and cleaned every day. Specification failures here do not show at handover; they show in year two, when the rate has to be discounted.
| Element | Minimum standard | What happens below it |
|---|---|---|
| Upholstery | 40,000 Martindale rubs, contract grade | Visible wear on the chair arm within eighteen months |
| Carpet | Solution-dyed nylon, stated tuft density, ≥ 1,000 g/m² | Traffic lanes in the corridor within a year |
| Case goods laminate | Abrasion class AC4 or better, 2 mm PVC edge | Chipped edges on every luggage bench in the hotel |
| Corridor wall protection | Crash rail at 900 mm and corner guards | Trolley damage along the entire corridor |
| Bathroom floor | Slip rating R11 wet, small module for fall | A slip claim, which costs more than the floor |
| Door hardware | Commercial cycle-tested lockset, 200,000 cycles | Lock failures on the busiest rooms in year three |
| Curtains | Inherently flame-retardant fabric, washable | A fire-officer finding at the first inspection |
Where we work
We design hospitality interiors nationally and deliver them across Mumbai and the MMR. For Mumbai’s business-hotel corridors, boutique conversions and the realities of refurbishing while trading, see hotel interior designers in Mumbai. Restaurant and bar scope within a hotel is covered on restaurant interior design.
Selected commercial work by Greenbox Design Studio. Tap any image to enlarge.
Frequently asked questions
What does hotel interior design cost per key?+
₹6–₹10 lakh a key for budget and economy, ₹10–₹18 lakh midscale, ₹18–₹35 lakh upper-upscale and ₹35 lakh to over ₹1 crore for luxury and resort, all ex-GST and all including the key's pro-rata share of corridors, lobby, food and beverage and back of house.
Why build a prototype guest room?+
Because the room repeats. A prototype costs roughly the price of four keys and routinely saves the cost of twenty by catching dimensional errors, socket positions, housekeeping access problems and finish failures before they are ordered two hundred times. Live in it for a week with a housekeeper before signing it off.
Are prefabricated bathroom pods worth it?+
Above roughly eighty keys, usually yes. They are more consistent than site-built bathrooms, remove the wettest trade from the critical path and reduce snagging substantially. The trade-offs are a 14–20 week lead time, a fixed design that cannot be varied late, and the need for a crane or lift route that can take them.
How much of a hotel is back of house?+
Twelve to sixteen per cent of the built area in a budget hotel, sixteen to twenty-two per cent midscale and twenty-two to thirty per cent upper-upscale. Public areas sit on top of that, and together they take twenty-five to forty per cent of the area and a considerably larger share of the fit-out budget.
What are the long-lead items on a hotel fit-out?+
Bathroom pods at 14–20 weeks, custom carpet at 12–18, bespoke case goods at 12–16 and decorative lighting at 10–16. These are ordered at concept stage rather than at tender, because the programme is set by whichever arrives last, not by how quickly the joinery can be made.
How do you renovate a hotel that is still operating?+
Floor by floor or, better, in vertical stacks so the wet works stay in one riser. Seal the working area with a double-skin hoarding and a lobby, keep it under negative pressure, use a dedicated service lift, and agree the noisy-work window with the operator against occupancy. Count the rooms out of service as a real cost when comparing programmes.