The Relationship between Light Distributions in Hotel Guestrooms, Emotions, and Intention to Visit

ABSTRACT
Lighting is an essential atmospheric design element in hotel guestrooms as it highly impacts
guests' emotional and behavioral responses. While previous research on guestroom lighting
suggests that hotel guests prefer warm-white light over cool color temperature, there is a lack of
understanding of how different light distributions influence the guest's emotions and approach
behavior.
Thus, this study investigates the effects of five different light distributions on the vertical and
overhead planes on the guest's 9 emotional responses and how these emotions may impact their
intention to visit. This research adopts its theoretical framework from the M-R model by
Mehrabian and Russell (1974) and the PAD emotional state model. In addition, due to the
increasing interest in creating personalized experiences for hotel guests, this study also explores
how the social relationship of the guests (i.e., family VS couples) and the time of day on their
preferred light distributions.
The online questionnaire was in Thai and English and recruited the respondents aged over 25
and non-designers, through the professional and social network. Some 345 respondents
participated in the study; around 22% were non-Thai (e.g., Hong Kong and Taiwan). The
statistical analysis (SPSS) used descriptive statistics, t-test, and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA).
The main findings indicated that ‘pleasure’, including the perception of spaciousness and
privacy, positively influenced the intention to visit and associated with light distributions on the
upper part of the room. For the social relationship, when the respondent assumed to stay with a
family, most preferred the room with uplight to the perimeter walls, highly rated for perceived
spaciousness. At the same time, when the same respondent was asked to choose a room to stay
with a romantic partner, most chose the room with the indirect ambient light from a ceiling coffer,
associated with high privacy. Furthermore, these preferred light distributions are also different
between the activities in the evening and more relaxing time at night, where the most preferred
scenes seem to focus on the lower walls and the floor. These findings provide a better
understanding of how the guests, under different circumstances, may prefer different light
distributions which can be useful for lighting designers and hotel operators. Future study should
explore cultural differences on lighting preferences and decision-making of potential guests.