The difference between a delivery that runs smoothly and one that burns two days of a fitting crew’s time comes down almost entirely to a label. Every parcel must show the room number, floor, item and a progressive count such as “3 of 7”, and the list of parcels per room has to arrive by email the day before unloading. Without this, the fitters open the packaging to work out what’s inside, close it badly again, and by five in the afternoon two bedside tables are missing, sitting on the third floor in the wrong room.
Another fact worth knowing upfront: on domestic transport, a carrier’s compensation for damaged goods is capped by law at one euro per kilogram. A 60 kg wardrobe worth 1,100 euros that arrives smashed gets reimbursed at 60 euros. The entire reasoning around insurance cover starts from here.
Contents
The label and the loading list
A useful label is at least 10×15 cm, applied to two faces of the parcel, and shows, in order, the job number, the floor, the room, a description of the item, the parcel’s progressive count and its weight. A barcode or QR code helps if whoever receives it has a scanner, and on large sites it pays off: scanning at intake builds the list of what’s come in automatically.
The loading list should be organised by room, not by product type. It’s a trivial-sounding difference that changes the whole day: the lorry is loaded in reverse order to the fitting route, so the parcels for room 101 come out first. When the load is organised by item instead, all the headboards together and all the wardrobes together, the crew has to move every piece twice. Over fifty rooms that’s four or five hours lost.
On the sites I work on, the rule is one delivery per floor, not a single delivery for the whole hotel. The lorry arrives in the morning, the floor being fitted that day and the next gets unloaded, and the rest stays in the supplier’s warehouse. It costs a few extra trips, but it stops two hundred parcels from occupying the lobby for three weeks. Anyone working on a property that stays open with guests in house has no alternative: on-site storage simply isn’t an option.
Packing: it has to survive the journey and disappear quickly
Two conflicting requirements. Heavy-duty packing protects everything and then produces mountains of waste to dispose of; light packing is disposed of in a moment and doesn’t arrive in one piece.
The compromise that works in hotel contract furnishing is double-wall cardboard on painted elements, pressed-cardboard or moulded polystyrene corner protectors on edges, bubble wrap only on mirrored surfaces and glass, and stretch film to close everything up. Large pieces go on a pallet with strapping, never loose. Wooden crates are used only for reception counters, one-off pieces and shipments outside the EU, where the wood needs to be treated to the international phytosanitary standard and stamped accordingly.
One measure that cuts damage significantly: protecting vertical edges with continuous corner guards, because ninety per cent of chipping happens there, when a parcel is rested on its edge on the ground. Polystyrene corners on just the four corners aren’t enough if the piece is taller than 180 cm.
Another: worktops and tops must be transported standing on a trestle, never stacked flat. A 3-metre chipboard top loaded flat under other parcels arrives with a permanent bow.
| Logistics item | 2026 order of magnitude | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Contract packing for a complete room | 60-140 euros | cardboard, corners, film, pallets |
| Wooden crate for a one-off piece | 90-280 euros | mandatory outside the EU, treated wood |
| Dedicated rigid-truck trip, medium distance | 500-900 euros | up to 18 pallets, within 400 km |
| Articulated lorry trip, long haul | 1,100-1,900 euros | 33 pallets, over 600 km |
| Tail-lift surcharge | 60-130 euros per trip | needed without a loading bay |
| Waiting time beyond the two-hour allowance | 45-75 euros per hour | needs to go in the contract |
| Crane hire for lifting from the façade | 700-1,500 euros per day | plus a public land occupation permit |
| Packaging collection and disposal | 250-600 euros per skip | 15-20 m³ volume |
There’s also a consistency question in the choice of packing materials: a supplier who has set up the whole order around lower environmental impact looks a bit inconsistent if it then produces twelve cubic metres of polystyrene. Shaped cardboard and honeycomb paper bubble wrap cost 15-20 per cent more and go in the same bin as the paper.
Unloading: where time really gets lost
A city-centre hotel has no loading bay. The lorry pulls up on the street, often in a traffic lane, and unloading happens with a tail lift rated for 1,000-2,000 kg, or by hand when the parcels are light. A manual pallet truck only works on smooth flooring: on the cobbles of a historic centre it won’t move.
The things to check on a site visit, before booking transport, are always the same. The width of the entrance door and every door along the route, measured with the leaf fully open, not the clear masonry opening. The clear height of the service lift and its rated load, together with the depth of the car, because a 240 cm wardrobe won’t fit into a 130 cm car and will have to go up the stairs. The bend in the stairwell, which is where long pieces get stuck. Any steps at the entrance, which call for a ramp.
When the measurements don’t work, you move to external lifting, with a crane or platform, entry through a window with the frame removed. It costs between 700 and 1,500 euros a day plus the public land occupation permit, and it needs to be decided at the design stage, not on the morning of delivery. It’s also the point at which you realise some elements should have been designed to be dismantled, something decided when the supply specification is written and the modularity of the pieces is defined.
Restricted traffic zones, time windows and permits
In Italian historic centres, delivery lives inside loading and unloading windows, often between 6 and 10 in the morning, sometimes with a second afternoon window. The goods permit for the limited traffic zone (ZTL) is requested from the local council a few days in advance, with the vehicle’s number plate, and in many towns there’s a weight limit that excludes vehicles over 3.5 or 7.5 tonnes. That means the articulated lorry unloads on the outskirts onto a smaller vehicle, with a transhipment that adds 250-500 euros and half a day.
Public land occupation for the unloading area is requested separately, with parking spaces marked out and notices displayed 48 or 72 hours in advance depending on local rules. Anyone who skips this finds cars parked where the lorry was meant to be, with no way to fix it on the day.
In Venice, and in a few other particular settings, the final stretch is by water, with a further transhipment onto a motor barge and limited capacity: on lagoon commissions, the logistics cost can reach 12-15 per cent of the value of the supply, against 3-5 per cent for an ordinary delivery. It needs to be budgeted for from the start.
Who is liable for damage
The practical rule is blunt: whoever receives the goods without writing anything on the transport document has accepted the goods. Unreserved receipt, combined with paying what’s owed to the carrier, extinguishes any claims arising from the transport contract, barring wilful misconduct or gross negligence.
A reservation has to be written by hand on the carrier’s copy and on your own, specifically: “parcel 14 of 32, cardboard torn on the bottom right corner, reservation to check the contents.” Generic wording such as “subject to inspection” or “goods not checked” is treated as ineffective by case law, so it offers no protection.
For damage that isn’t recognisable at the moment of delivery, meaning the kind that shows up once the packaging is opened, the deadline to report it is eight days from receipt. Eight days isn’t much when parcels stay closed while waiting to be fitted, which is why it pays to open and spot-check at least 10 per cent of the parcels the same day as delivery, choosing the most fragile ones.
The one-euro-per-kilo compensation cap on domestic transport is almost always insufficient against a carrier’s liability. The answer is an all-risk policy on the goods in transit, covering everything from the warehouse through to fitting, which costs between 0.15 and 0.40 per cent of the insured value. On a 600,000-euro supply that’s 900-2,400 euros, and it also covers damage from a fall during on-site fitting, which is the stage where pieces are most often damaged. Whoever organises the delivery needs to clarify in writing who takes out the policy, because a “delivered free to site” clause defines who bears the risk but doesn’t replace insurance.
Everything that comes up at this stage then feeds into the formal check of the supply, and transport damage needs to be kept separate from production defects when the inspection report is drawn up: they are two different liabilities, with two different counterparties and two different deadlines.
The packaging afterwards
Packaging waste produced on site is the responsibility of whoever generates it, and the contract needs to state clearly whether collection falls to the supplier or the contractor. The quantity is surprising: a complete room generates between 0.6 and 1.2 cubic metres of cardboard, film and polystyrene, so sixty rooms fill three or four skips.
The set-up that works involves a collection point per floor with three separate bins for cardboard, plastic and wood, emptied every evening, and a skip in the courtyard. Loose polystyrene needs compacting, or you pay to transport air. Sorting from the start cuts disposal costs by 30-40 per cent compared with mixed waste collection, and on an average commission that means around a thousand euros.
One last detail nobody factors in when planning production and delivery timelines: packaging disposal needs to be scheduled like any other piece of work, with its own hours and its own cost. Left to improvisation, it ends up blocking the corridor on exactly the day the inspection or the first group of guests arrives.
Frequently asked questions
How should the parcels of a hotel supply be labelled?
With a job number, floor, room number, item description, parcel progressive count and weight, on labels applied to two faces. The loading list should be organised by room and sent the day before delivery, so the crew knows what to expect and in what order to unload.
Who pays if a piece of furniture arrives damaged?
The carrier is liable for loss and damage, but on domestic transport compensation is capped at one euro per kilogram of damaged goods. Since that figure covers only a small fraction of a piece of furniture’s value, an all-risk policy on the goods in transit is needed, costing roughly between 0.15 and 0.40 per cent of the value.
How long do you have to dispute transport damage?
Visible damage has to be disputed with a specific written reservation on the transport document at the moment of delivery. Damage that isn’t recognisable while the packaging is closed has to be reported as soon as it’s discovered and in any case within eight days of receipt, so it’s worth opening and checking part of the parcels the same day.
Do you need a permit to unload in a historic centre?
Almost always, yes. You need an access permit for the limited traffic zone with the vehicle’s number plate, requested a few days in advance, and often temporary occupation of public land for the parking area, with notices displayed 48 or 72 hours beforehand. Many towns also limit vehicle weight, forcing a transhipment onto a smaller vehicle.
How much does it cost to dispose of the packaging from a hotel site?
Between 250 and 600 euros per 15-20 cubic metre skip, and a complete room produces between 0.6 and 1.2 cubic metres of packaging. Separating cardboard, plastic and wood on site cuts the cost by 30-40 per cent compared with mixed collection.
