Choosing hotel beds and mattresses: sizes, firmness, protectors and replacement

A hotel bed is a specification, not a brand. The facility regulation asks only for a bed "conforming to technical norms" and names no size, so the hotel writes its own: sizes, firmness for its guests, a protector on every mattress, a sample night test before a bulk order, and a record for turning and replacement.

The mattresses arrive, the rooms are photographed, and eight months later a guest asks to move because the bed has a dip in the middle. The purchase order said "high quality". Nobody wrote down what that meant. This article is a hotel mattress buying guide that fixes that: what the regulation actually requires, how to choose sizes and firmness, how to test before you commit, and how to track what you own until the day it is replaced.

What does the regulation actually require of a hotel bed?#

It requires a bed "conforming to technical norms", one pillow per person, a pillowcase and a sheet, and it names no size, depth or firmness at all. The regulation sets a floor; the specification is the hotel's own work.

Article 18(1)(a)(1) of the Regulation on the Qualifications of Tourism Facilities (Presidential Decision No. 1134, consolidated to its 31 August 2026 amendment) lists what a bedroom must contain: a bed conforming to technical norms, one pillow per person, a pillowcase, a sheet, a light quilt or a duvet depending on the climate, a bedside table, general lighting, a socket, a night light, a waste bin, a wardrobe, curtains, floor covering, air conditioning suited to the climate and a smoke detector. The telephone is not required in one- and two-star hotels, pensions, or apart hotels with fewer than 30 rooms. A search of the consolidated text on 7 November 2026 found no bed or mattress dimensions, so "technical norms" is not a size list you can copy from the legislation.

Article 18(1)(a)(2) ties the bed to the room: rooms of up to ten square metres excluding the bathroom may be arranged as singles and larger ones as doubles, and an extra bed may be added only at the guest's request. Room minimums exist where beds must fit: 25 m² including the bathroom in five-star hotels and five-star holiday villages, 20 m² in four-star ones, except in facilities in protected cultural-heritage buildings.

The practical consequence: write a one-page bed specification per room type, and treat the regulation as the minimum it is. Confirm your own case with your legal adviser or your Ministry inspector before you print the specification into a purchase contract.

Which bed sizes should a hotel standardize on?#

Pick two or three mattress footprints for the whole property and write them down, because the regulation names none and every extra size you add becomes a linen size, a protector size and a training problem. Decide the set-ups first: single room, double room, twin room that can join into a double, and the extra bed. Each set-up gets exactly one mattress model and one footprint.

Single, double and the twin that joins#

Common European footprints, for example, are 90 by 200 cm for a single or a twin half, 160 by 200 cm for a double and 180 by 200 cm for a king; treat these as illustrations to check against your own room plans, not as a norm. The twin that joins is a specification decision, not a housekeeping trick: the two mattresses must be the same depth and the same firmness, or the join is felt through the topper. The bed-making standard for turning twins into a double is a separate procedure your team needs in writing.

Room size constrains the bed: rooms of up to ten square metres excluding the bathroom may be arranged as singles under Article 18(1)(a)(2), so check the room plan before buying a large footprint into a small room. Mattress depth, the height of the block, decides your sheet and protector sizes and whether a bed skirt fits; fix the depth in the specification so a later re-order does not change your linen. Every size you add multiplies the linen par level, the laundry flow and the losses you have to chase.

Footprints are illustrative examples, not a regulatory norm. If you sell twins as doubles, read the hotel bed making standard: turning twins into a double so the conversion looks the same every time.

Extra beds and cots#

Extra beds and cots are a policy question before they are a purchasing question: who gets one, at what age, and at what charge belongs in your hotel child policy: age bands, free places and extra beds, not in the mattress order. A cot mattress must match the cot frame exactly, with no gap.

How firm should a hotel mattress be, and what is inside it?#

Choose medium-firm as the default and buy the adjustability in a topper, because a mattress that suits a 30-year-old city guest and one that suits an 80-year-old on a coach tour are not the same bed. Firmness is a system, not a number on the label: mattress, base and topper act together, and a firm mattress on a soft base feels soft.

Construction in plain words: an open-spring core is the cheapest and the noisiest over time; a pocket-spring core has springs in individual fabric pockets so one sleeper's movement does not travel; a foam core is quiet and light but can hold heat; a hybrid mixes foam and pocket springs. Read your own guest mix: families with small children, long-stay guests, older tour groups, sports teams and couples all load a bed differently, and the right default for a resort is not the right default for a city hotel.

The topper is the cheap adjustment layer: change the topper and you change the feel of the room without re-buying the mattress. Ask about edge support, because guests sit on the edge of a hotel bed far more than they do at home, and a weak edge is the first place a mattress fails. Ask whether the mattress is one-sided or two-sided; a two-sided mattress can be flipped, but only if your housekeeping team has the labour and the schedule to do it.

Do not accept a firmness claim from a showroom: a showroom bed has been stood on by a hundred people for five minutes each, which tells you nothing about eight hours a night for three years.

Do mattress protectors matter as much as the mattress?#

Yes. The protector is the part that takes the stain, the sweat and the wash, and it is usually the condition a mattress warranty depends on. A protector (alez) is a fitted, usually waterproof layer between the mattress and the sheet; it is not a mattress pad and not a topper, and the three are bought for different reasons.

TÜROB's hotel-textile report of August 2026 assumes two protectors per bed in its market estimate, with about a quarter of them replaced each year; the report presents these as estimates, not official statistics (TÜROB, Türkiye Otel Tekstili Sektörel Analiz Raporu, Ağustos 2026 (opens in a new tab)). Two per bed is a par level, not a rule: the right number depends on your laundry turnaround, your drying capacity and how many rooms turn on the same day.

Waterproof versus quilted is a trade-off: full waterproofing protects the core but can sleep warm, so check what the guest feels before you buy a hundred. Washing temperature and drying decide the life of the protector: a protector that shrinks no longer fits the mattress it was bought for, and a shrunken protector is a protector that gets left off.

Pillows and duvets belong in the same decision: the same TÜROB report assumes pillows at roughly twice the number of beds and quilts at one per bed, with about a fifth renewed each year, again as an estimate. A cot mattress needs its own protector and its own sheet, sized to the cot frame, with no gap around the edge.

For how these numbers feed your stock, see the hotel linen management: par levels, laundry flow and losses guide.

How do you test a mattress before a bulk order?#

Put one mattress into a real room, let real guests sleep on it for a defined number of stays, and collect answers to written questions before you order the rest. Order one or two samples, not a pallet, and install them in the room type that matches your largest room count, because that is where the decision has the most money in it.

Fix the test period in advance: a set number of stays or a set number of weeks, written down, so the test ends on a date and not on opinion. Ask specific questions rather than "was the bed comfortable": did you feel a dip, did you sleep hot, could you feel your partner move, was the edge firm when you sat on it, did you wake with back pain.

Ask housekeeping separately: how does it handle when making the bed, how heavy is it to turn, do the sheet corners stay on, does the protector fit without pulling. Record the batch or model reference of the sample, because the mattress that arrives in six months must be the mattress you tested. Decide in advance what result ends the test: a defined complaint rate, a defined housekeeping objection, or a clean pass. Only then write the purchase order, with the tested reference written into it.

How do you track mattresses by room, turn them and know when to replace them?#

Keep one line per mattress against the room number, with the date it went in, its batch, when it was last turned and its condition, and let that record drive both turning and replacement. The regulation sets contents, not a replacement interval, so the hotel sets its own replacement rule and writes it down; a rule you cannot state is a rule you cannot budget for. Confirm your own obligations with your legal adviser.

Turning: rotate head-to-foot on a fixed cycle, and flip only if the mattress is two-sided; a turning schedule that lives in someone's head stops when that person leaves. Inspection cues that belong in the room check: a visible dip where the body lies, a collapsed edge, a spring or a hard spot you can feel through the protector, a stain that reached the core, and a guest complaint.

Replace in waves rather than all at once: a property that buys every mattress in the same month replaces every mattress in the same month, and pays for it in one budget year. Tie the mattress check to work your team already does, so it is not a separate inspection: the deep cleaning plan for hotel rooms: a rotation by room, season and task and the room check are the natural places to record condition. The record also answers the supplier question later: which batch failed, in which rooms, and after how many turns.

Keep it in the same system as the room, not in a separate spreadsheet nobody opens.

What should you ask a mattress supplier before signing?#

Four things decide the contract more than the price does: what the warranty actually covers, what voids it, how the mattress reaches the room, and who takes the old one away. Warranty: ask what is covered, the core, the cover, a dip beyond a stated depth, and what voids it, because a stain or a missing protector is a common exclusion and that changes how you buy protectors.

Fire behaviour: ask for the documentation your insurer and your fire risk assessment need, and keep it with the purchase file. Delivery is a real constraint in an existing building: lift dimensions, corridor turns, stair width and whether the mattress arrives compressed or flat decide whether it reaches the fourth floor at all.

Old mattress removal: agree in writing who takes them, on what day, and where they go, because a corridor full of old mattresses on a changeover day is a fire load and a complaint. Re-orderability: ask whether the same model can be supplied in two years, because a wave replacement plan depends on matching what is already in the rooms.

Cots: the European safety standard for children's cots is EN 716-1, published in the UK by BSI as BS EN 716-1:2017 and listed as current; ask the cot supplier for the certificate and check that the cot mattress fits the frame with no gap (BSI Knowledge (opens in a new tab)).

What to do next#

Write a one-page bed specification for your property this week: the set-ups and footprints, the firmness and topper, the protector, the depth, and the turning and replacement rule. Then buy one sample against it and let a guest sleep on it. Everything else in this article, from linen par levels to the deep-clean rotation, follows from that page.