Just How Much Do People Care About Seating?

Americans care about their seats, and they care a lot. Here’s just a few things you might not know.

Making Movie Theater Seats Bigger. – In order to sell more movie tickets, AMC theaters starting using textile solutions. Namely, they made their seats bigger. Although this may seem counter-intuitive — the bigger the seats, the fewer the seats that can fit in a theater, and the fewer the tickets — the textile solutions actually worked. A survey from RBC Capital Markets found that 24% of survey respondents said AMC was their favorite theater, which is believed to be the result of a focus on improving the customer experience. In other words, making the whole experience of going to see the movie, rather than just rely on the quality of the movies themselves, has proven to increase ticket sales.

Cramped Airline Passengers. – Speaking of making seats bigger, airlines would be wise to partner with industrial textile manufacturers as AMC did. According to a recent TripAdvisor poll, the single biggest complaint people have about flying is the small seats. They want bigger ones. This doesn’t seem like all that big of a deal until you consider the fact that the second biggest complaint are the prices. In other words, people would rather fly more comfortably than pay hundreds of dollars less.

Limiting Fire Damage. – Between 2004 and 2007, U.S. fire departments responded to an average 287,000 vehicle fires per year. These blazes led to the death of 480 civilians, as well as 1,525 civilian injuries, and $1.3 billion in direct property damage annually. In order to make sure motorists are as safe as possible, automotive textile manufacturers make their industrial textile solutions as flame-retardant as possible, thereby trying to limit the damage such fires can do.

Who would have thought that seating was such a big deal, or that people would care so much? If you have any comments, feel free to share.