Atour sells chairs! Do you dare to sit down at the front desk of the hotel?

How many steps does it take to go from selling pillows to selling chairs?

Why do you have to stand at the hotel front desk?

When guests come, they stand up to check in; when someone asks for questions, they stand and answer patiently; even if there are no guests in the lobby for the time being, many front desks still stand where they are.

For guests, this may just be a normal scene in the hotel.

But for front-line front desk employees, standing for more than ten hours, causing foot pain, backache, and swollen calves has become their daily routine.

“Standing service” has almost become a standard action at the hotel front desk.

Over time, people rarely even ask: Why?

This summer, Atour Group added high chairs to the front desks of its hotels, allowing employees to sit down and handle back-office work when there are no guests, breaking the old industry rule that “must stand the entire time” at hotel front desks. ?

It is reported that Atour Group is also supporting in-store training to clarify service boundaries: when a customer reaches about five meters from the front desk, employees will get up in time to receive them; during no-customer hours, they are allowed to sit down and handle housekeeping.

One thing worth noting is that as of the end of June 2026, Atour has a total of 2,175 hotels in operation, including 2,156 franchise stores and only 19 directly operated stores, with franchises accounting for more than 99%.

On social media, a user who claimed to be the owner of Atour posted, “With all the overwhelming publicity and the matter of chairs for front desk partners, is it really caring about the front line, or is it just doing supply chain business under the guise of caring for employees?”

The post further complained: Since you can see how hard it is to stand at the front desk all day and have varicose veins, why can’t you just get it for free? The brand charges a large monthly management fee, which logically should include front-line basic employment protection. Even if the brand and owners share the cost in half, it can still be considered a show of sincerity.

He said, “As an owner, we are completely willing to purchase chairs and optimize the working environment for front-line partners. However, caring for employees should not become a kidnapping method for the brand. We cannot force their supply chain to be taken away in the name of treating partners well, allowing the brand to gain both fame and fortune.”

Under this post, other users revealed, “The purchase price of this chair is 500 yuan.”

In this regard, some consumers said bluntly, “You should pay for the supporting equipment yourself. There is not much money. It is too cruel to ask the owner to pay. You have earned the reputation yourself.”

In fact, before selling chairs, Atour had already tasted the sweetness of selling pillows.

Atour’s second-quarter financial report once again put “retail” at the forefront of public opinion.

In the second quarter, retail revenue was 1.575 billion yuan and franchise hotel business revenue was 1.725 billion yuan. There was only 150 million yuan left between the two.

In the first half of this year, the total gross profit of the retail business has even exceeded that of the hotel sector.

When Atour goes public in the United States in 2022, its annual retail revenue will be only 254 million yuan, accounting for only 11.22% of total revenue.

At that time, Atour was still a hotel company through and through, and retailing was at best a “handy side job.”

But the twist came sooner than most expected.

Retail revenue will jump to 972 million yuan in 2023, accounting for 20.8%. There will be explosive growth in 2024, with retail revenue growth exceeding 120%. More than 3 million deep-sleeping pillows and 770,000 deep-sleeping quilts were sold throughout the year, and the revenue is already equivalent to half of the hotel business.

By 2025, retail revenue will have reached 3.67 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 67%, accounting for 37.5%.

In the first half of this year, 2.646 billion yuan was done in just six months.

In more than three years, retail revenue has expanded from 254 million yuan to 2.6 billion yuan, an increase of more than ten times.

The core item that supports this growth curve is the pillow.

In 2023, the deep sleep pillow series will have a cumulative sales of 1.2 million pieces.

In 2024, more than 3.8 million Deep Sleep pillow Pro series alone were sold, and 770,000 Deep Sleep pillows were sold.

By the end of the second quarter of 2026, the cumulative sales of the Deep Sleep Pillow Pro series have exceeded 12 million units.

Based on Atour’s 2,175 hotels in operation, each store sold an average of more than 5,500 pillows. In the second quarter, GMV of the quilt core category increased by more than 80% year-on-year, and new categories such as fitted sheets and pajamas are also rising.

Ye Luyin, founder of Atour, said at the earnings conference call that the company is “gradually shifting from a single hot product model to a richer product portfolio.”

From a pillow to quilt cores, fitted sheets, and home clothes, Atour’s retail footprint is indeed expanding.

But no matter how it expands, pillows will always play the role of “carrying the flag”. The cumulative sales of 12 million pieces are considered a phenomenal item in any hotel group or even home textile company.

What do you think of Atour’s current wave of chair sales?

Atour’s retail business income, which mainly focuses on “selling pillows”, is approaching its main business. Does this mean that it is “not doing its job properly”?

In this regard, Zhang Ao and Shu Le of Sina’s “BUG” column had a discussion. I think:

Selling pillows is a consumption scene, selling chairs is a franchise increase.

Selling chairs is a normal business franchise model, which uses standard accessories to unify the brand tone and hotel positioning of the entire chain to achieve a consistent chain consumption experience.

However, this standard configuration must ensure high quality and low price, and cannot charge a high premium as a disguised form of “secondary management fees” from franchisees, turning it into a form of exploitation.

For rigidly needed hotel facilities such as front desk chairs, the so-called on-demand purchasing means that at least one must be purchased, and it can be extended to various necessary hotel facilities.

Once a high premium is really implied, franchisees may collectively protest or even choose to withdraw. For Atour, the gain outweighs the loss.

Selling pillows at Atour is not a failure of business, but an expansion of the hotel consumption scene.

Its retail business revenue is close to its main business, which just shows that the expansion of this consumption scenario has achieved remarkable results.

After all, consumers shop voluntarily.

For the hotel industry, jumping out of old consumption scenarios such as room rates and catering and exploring new scenarios has become the optimal solution under pressure on hotel occupancy rates.

However, there is always a ceiling to this kind of play. Bedding is a relatively durable product. Behind the explosive sales is the peak of subsequent single products and sales pressure.

This may be the reason why Atour began to expand franchise value-added service scenarios in addition to consumption scenarios.

Everything is traffic anxiety.

One chair cannot solve the problem of systemic strain injuries in the entire industry, but it provides a valuable way to think about it:

Since you consider the experience of the front desk clerk, why not give a chair to increase the sense of belonging?

Even if it is a franchise store, employees can experience the warmth of the brand, and the service will be better, and the sales will naturally easily exceed the price of a chair.