How Much Do Weekly Contract Flowers Cost for a London Hotel?

Most London hotels spend somewhere between £150 and £2,500 a week on contract flowers. Boutique properties running one or two arrangements sit at the lower end. A five-star hotel dressing a lobby, reception desk, restaurant, bar and guest floors sits in the middle to upper part of that range, and flagship properties go well beyond it.

That spread is uselessly wide if you're trying to build a budget. So here is where the numbers actually come from, what moves them, and how to compare two quotes that look nothing like each other.

What London florists publish

Very few contract florists put prices on their websites. The ones that do give a reasonable picture of the market:

Two things stand out. First, the honest ones price per arrangement, not per week. Second, the gap between the bottom and the top isn't really a gap in flower quality. It's a gap in how many positions you're dressing and how visible they are.

 

Hotel flower setup by Amaranté London

 

Why hotels cost more than offices

An office reception is seen by staff who already work there and the occasional visitor. A hotel lobby is seen by every guest, every day, and it sets the price expectation for the room before anyone reaches the desk.

That difference shows up in the quote in four ways.

More positions. A typical office contract covers reception and a boardroom. A hotel might cover the main lobby, reception desk, concierge, restaurant host stand, bar, spa, lift lobbies, washrooms and executive floors. Each is a separate arrangement with its own tier.

Higher visibility per position. The lobby piece in a five-star hotel is a statement installation, not a vase. That moves it out of tier pricing and into the £300–£800 bracket that By Flourish describes for bespoke work.

Harder access. Hotel installs happen before guests are moving - often between 5am and 7am - using service lifts, with security sign-in and sometimes a banksman for anything at height. Early-morning labour is more expensive than a 10am office drop.

Shorter tolerance for decline. An office can live with a slightly tired arrangement on day six. A hotel can't. That usually means mid-week maintenance visits, which is labour, not flowers.

How to work out your own weekly figure

The calculation is simpler than most quotes make it look:

(Number of positions × tier price per position) + maintenance visits + seasonal uplift = weekly cost

Worked through for a 60-room boutique hotel, using the published tier pricing above:

That's roughly £19,760 a year before VAT, before Christmas, and before any event work.

Run the same exercise on a 200-room five-star property with a signature lobby installation, two restaurants, a bar, a spa and club-floor arrangements, and the weekly figure moves past £1,000 without anything unusual happening. The maths is the same. The number of positions isn't.

 

What's included, and what usually isn't

This is where two quotes stop being comparable.

Before comparing two prices, check they cover the same rows. A quote that looks 20% cheaper often excludes the maintenance visit that keeps the lobby looking right on a Thursday.

Does VAT apply?

 

Yes. Fresh flowers supplied by a florist are standard-rated, so VAT is added at the prevailing UK rate - 20% at the time of writing. If your hotel is VAT registered, it's normally recoverable as a business expense, which means the figure that matters for budgeting is the ex-VAT one. Some florists quote inclusive and some exclusive, so it's worth confirming which you're looking at before comparing.

How seasonal peaks change the annual budget

A weekly figure multiplied by 52 understates the year. Most hotel contracts carry three or four peaks on top of the baseline:

• Christmas - the largest by a distance. Trees, garlands, façade and lobby installations, usually installed late October into November and quoted as a separate project.

• Valentine's Day - restaurant and bar dressing, often with a same-week turnaround.

• Mother's Day and Easter - lighter, but they lift the baseline for a fortnight.

• Brand moments and VIP stays - unpredictable, and worth agreeing a rate for in advance rather than each time.

Contracts that build these in tend to price them more keenly than one-off requests made three weeks out.

Why the cheapest quote often costs more

Two patterns come up repeatedly with hotel contracts.

The first is stem quality. A cheaper arrangement in a heated lobby with direct sun can start dropping by day four. If it needs replacing mid-week, the real weekly cost isn't the quoted one.

The second is scope creep. A low headline price with everything else billed as an extra - maintenance, out-of-hours access, seasonal changes - tends to land higher over twelve months than a slightly higher inclusive rate. Ask for the annual figure, not the weekly one, and the comparison usually resolves itself.

Questions to ask before signing

1. Is this price per arrangement or per week, and does it include VAT?

2. How many positions does it cover, and at which tier?

3. What happens if an arrangement fails mid-week - is a replacement included?

4. Are vessels loaned or purchased, and who replaces breakages?

5. What access time is assumed, and what changes if we need pre-opening installs?

6. How are Christmas and seasonal peaks quoted?

7. What's the notice period, and can we pause during refurbishment?

8. Where do the flowers come from, and can you evidence the sourcing?

That last one matters more than it used to. Hotels with their own sustainability reporting increasingly need supplier evidence rather than supplier claims.

Getting an accurate number for your property

Any figure in this article is a starting point, not a quote. The only way to price a hotel contract properly is a walk-through - counting positions, seeing the light and heat in each space, and understanding what the property wants guests to feel when they walk in.

Amaranté London designs weekly contract flowers for hotels and restaurants across London, so the sourcing question has a documented answer. If you'd like a costed proposal for your property, arrange a site visit.

FAQ

How much are weekly flowers for a small boutique hotel?

Using published London tier pricing, a property dressing three to five positions typically lands between roughly £150 and £400 a week before VAT. The figure depends more on how many positions you dress than on the hotel's star rating.

Is a flower contract cheaper than ordering weekly?

Usually, yes. Contracts secure a delivery slot, a consistent designer and agreed tier pricing, and most florists price ad-hoc orders higher because they can't plan the buy.

Can we change the flowers each week?

Most contract florists design fresh each visit from what's strong at the Dutch auctions that week rather than repeating a fixed recipe, so variation is normal rather than an extra.

What notice period is standard?

This varies by florist and isn't something to assume. Ask for it in writing alongside the pause terms for refurbishment periods.