Perhaps there is no greater pleasure than the pleasure of being comfortable, which is one of the reasons why millions of people around the world have air conditioning installed in their homes. However, an air conditioner’s ability to transform a room’s environment into a more pleasant one is not exclusive to the home. We see air conditioning being used in commercial locations such as shopping malls, waiting rooms, movie theaters, hotels and restaurants, all with the intention of achieving the same goal: enhancing the experience through comfort.

Being comfortable is not just about air temperature. Take into account several other environmental factors, including ambient temperature, air velocity and humidity, and it is experienced differently from person to person.

For example, a person experiencing optimal thermal comfort means being neither too cold nor too hot, but one person’s optimal thermal comfort will be perceived differently by another person.

Most factors that add to thermal comfort and indoor comfort can be created and/or controlled air conditioning. This is why air conditioning plays an important role in establishing and maintaining the ideal indoor environment. In this article, we look at comfort in retail spaces, where it plays an important role in creating the right experience.

Hotels

When we talk about comfort in hotels, we’re not just talking about rooms. We must also remember that there are many spaces in hotels where guests are expected to feel comfortable during their stay; reception, breakfast rooms, spa and gym and common areas for relaxation. Essentially, comfort should be a continuous experience from check-in to check-out to facilitate a sense of disconnection, relaxation and most importantly, the feeling of being on vacation.

A study highlighted by verywellmind.com found that 3 days after a vacation, people’s mood improved, anxiety levels were lower and they felt rested compared to their pre-vacation state. In some cases, these changes were still present 5 weeks later. Hotels play a key role in these feelings and the indoor atmosphere is vital.

Focusing on temperature and air quality, common spaces need to adapt to everyone’s preferences, which means maintaining a flexible but consistent standard of comfort in relation to external factors to create the optimal atmosphere. However, when staying in the hotel room, the comfort experience is quite different should be personalized, and giving guests the ability to customize their room temperature further enhances the sense of comfort experienced. This, in turn, enhances guests’ feeling of their stay, further improving their mood.

Restaurants and Bars

Restaurants and bars are more than just places to dine or quench your thirst. They are places for socializing, catching up with friends and enjoying a quiet moment with loved ones after a busy day. That’s why it’s essential that these spaces convey comfort as an experience, so they encourage customers to stay longer. As well as welcoming staff, well-planned décor, lighting and music to create the right mood, it all comes down to temperature and air quality.

The cozy experience in a restaurant or bar should invite a person to feel at ease in the space they are in, and the right air conditioning equipment will help keep temperatures comfortable in every nook and cranny and open spaces . This will not only encourage people to stay longer, but its positive impact could lead to a customer leaving a positive review online or recommending the establishment to friends and family.

Retail shops

A pleasant environment can make all the difference when a customer enters your store, presenting the deciding factor for how long they will stay. That’s why it’s essential to incorporate your customer’s wellbeing into the experience you want to offer in-store. If you do this, you can increase footfall, sales and get referrals and repeat customers. Places where indoor air quality feels fresh and clean can encourage people to spend more time in a store and potentially more money.

Shoppers’ moods are hard to measure, especially in locations where mid-season temperatures are extreme. In the summer, as the temperature rises, levels of cortisol, the stress-causing hormone, increase, so it’s a necessity to help the customer keep cool. Even in winter, when customers walk into a shop in a thick jacket and the temperature inside is too high, they probably take their business elsewhere. However, the same is true for generating spaces that are too cold. This, along with other ambient factors such as odor, is one of the most common reasons why customers would quickly leave a store, so setting an optimal and comfortable temperature in line with the weather outside is a must.

In addition, the right indoor climate is more than just a tact to make customers stay. The right environment is also needed for your employees. After all, they spend most of their day in the store, and their experience of comfort will vary greatly from that of a browsing customer, and making sure they feel comfortable will help their mood and productivity.

Waiting rooms

Inside a clinic or hospital, one of the busiest places is the waiting room and it’s a place full of various emotions; people waiting for their name to be called, waiting to see a loved one, waiting to see the results of an exam or to undergo a procedure. In places like this, it is vital that the environment is comfortable and encourages people to feel calm and relaxed.

From the décor, to the seating, to the smell and air quality, there are a lot of factors that influence how someone experiences a waiting room which in turn affects their mood. Feeling fresh, airy spaces can boost mood and reduce the chance of spaces feeling cramped or ‘stuffy’.

Beyond the waiting room, if a patient experiences general comfort during and while healing, they are more likely to recover faster than those in environments that produce tension and stress. Similarly, waiting rooms in office receptions are spaces where people need a comfortable place to sit while waiting to be seen or to go to an appointment. By choosing to produce spaces that communicate a sense of comfort, stress and anxiety can be minimized.

The spaces mentioned above are just some of the places where comfort has a significant impact on a person’s experience. This, in turn, contributes to a person’s well-being, which is increasingly important in business and in our personal lives as we seek satisfaction and quality of life.

Comfort is essential for well-being

As well as being necessary to comply with what is determined by legislation, thermal comfort and air quality are essential to a person’s well-being. Not paying attention to them can have short and long-term effects on mental and physical health.

Putting air conditioning or ventilation solutions in place means that a business or homeowner can take steps to help avoid creating such environments.

Commercial and office spaces aside, when thinking about the wellbeing of office workers, various tactics need to be deployed to maintain optimal conditions, one of which is air conditioning. Often spaces that are effectively sealed, a source of air and ventilation is needed. In smaller spaces, temperatures can be preset, or employees themselves can manage the conditions, adapting to the needs of coworkers and visitors as ambient temperatures fluctuate throughout the day. In fact, in the office, wellness can increase productivity by up to 12%.

Comfort, in a broader sense, and well-being are inevitably linked and have a direct impact on each other. The elements of what makes us feel comfortable lead to better well-being; peace, a sense of security, physical comfort, living conditions and much more all influence our state of being healthy and happy, called our well-being.

No wonder then that, from home to work, people are interested in investing their time and energy in things that make them feel better. And the right atmosphere can make all the difference.

Tools for creating comfort indoors

Creating indoor comfort is based on various attributes; decoration, layout, lighting, furniture distribution and of course indoor air quality and temperature. For managing air quality and temperature, Hitachi Air Conditioning products are indispensable in helping to generate all kinds of comfortable environments, from households to commercial premises. Within the ranges on offer for businesses, commercial air conditioning systems and VRF systems , you can select from a wide variety of solutions that have been tailored to suit your business needs and operational requirements. Hitachi Ventilation and Air Renewal products improve even more.

You’ll also find a range of specialized components, filters and controls that can be integrated into your Hitachi air conditioning system, further enhancing the quality and safety of the comfort you provide. What’s more, they help to reduce the symptoms of Sick Building Syndomre, which can be experienced in any indoor, residential or professional environment, helping spaces to remain healthier for occupants.

Keeping in mind the topics covered, you can take the right steps to promote environments that benefit all those who pass in them.