Hotels are replacing traditional bathroom doors with sliding barn doors, curtains, frosted glass, and strategically placed walls. The problem is that they don’t fully contain noise or smells.
Denise Milano Sprung, a financial planning executive who has traveled for two decades, found a frosted door at the Calgary Airport Marriott offered little privacy. “I’ve been married for 25 years, I love my husband, but I don’t want to see him use the restroom,” she told The Wall Street Journal.
The shift comes as midprice hotel chains face pressure to cut costs. Business and group travel remains below prepandemic levels while staffing, construction, and energy bills have soared. Traditional doors are expensive to install and maintain, require wider ADA-compliant frames, and block natural light that increases energy costs.
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