Wooden doors are among the highest-volume line items in a hotel fit-out. A 150-room hotel typically requires 300–500 wooden door sets when you include guest room doors, bathroom doors, service corridor doors, and public area doors. Getting the specification right — and sourcing from a factory that can deliver consistently across that volume — is one of the more consequential procurement decisions on a hotel project.
This guide covers how to source wooden doors from China for hotel and hospitality projects: what to specify, which factories to target, and what to check before and during production.
Why Hotels Source Wooden Doors from China
Chinese factories supply hotel wooden doors to projects across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and Africa. The combination of cost, customisation capability, and production scale makes China the default sourcing origin for most international hotel projects in these markets.
Cost advantage is the primary driver. Chinese hotel-grade wooden doors typically cost 40–60% less than equivalent products sourced from European or North American manufacturers. For a 200-room hotel with a full door package, this can represent a saving of US$150,000–300,000 on a single line item.
Customisation capability is the second driver. Hotel interior designers typically specify exact veneer species, grain orientation, profile, finish sheen, and hardware preparation. Chinese factories serving the export hospitality market are experienced in executing against detailed Architectural Millwork drawings and can match specific finishes across large quantities.
Specifying Wooden Hotel Doors: What to Define Before You Source
A complete wooden door specification covers the following:
Door Construction
Solid timber vs. engineered core: Most hotel-grade wooden doors use an engineered core — MDF, particleboard, or LVL (Laminated Veneer Lumber) — with a natural or reconstituted timber veneer. Solid timber doors are heavier, more expensive, and prone to warping in humid climates. Engineered core doors are dimensionally stable, better suited to air-conditioned hotel environments, and offer more consistent veneer matching across large quantities.
Door thickness: Hotel room doors to corridors are typically 44mm or 54mm thick. Thicker doors improve acoustic performance — important for guest room sound privacy. Bathroom doors within rooms are often 35–40mm. Confirm thickness requirements from the acoustic report if one is available.
Door size: Confirm clear opening widths from the architectural drawings. Hotel accessibility standards typically require a minimum 850mm clear opening for guest room doors. Non-standard sizes (e.g., 950mm, 1000mm) are common in high-end hotel projects and should be confirmed early as they affect factory pricing and lead time.
Veneer and Finish
Veneer species: Common species used in hotel doors sourced from China include white oak, walnut, ash, teak, and reconstituted veneers designed to mimic rarer timber species. The interior designer’s FF&E specification will define the species and finish. Where natural veneer is specified, confirm whether bookmatched or slipmatched grain is required.
Finish: Door finish is typically UV-cured lacquer or PU lacquer in a specified sheen level (matte, satin, semi-gloss). Confirm the sheen level numerically (e.g., 10–15% gloss for matte) rather than by description alone — “matte” means different things to different factories.
Hardware Preparation
Factory hardware preparation (or “prep”) covers the hinge cutouts, lock chassis mortise, door viewer drilling, and any flush pull or concealed closer routing. This must match the specific hardware items specified on the project. Provide the factory with hardware cut sheets or physical hardware samples before production begins.
Pre-hung door sets — where the door is supplied fitted in its frame with hardware installed — can significantly reduce on-site labor and are available from most Chinese hotel door factories. Confirm frame dimensions, reveal depths, and architrave profiles if pre-hung sets are specified.
Finding the Right Factory
China’s hotel door manufacturing is concentrated in several regions: Guangdong (particularly Foshan and Dongguan), Zhejiang, and Fujian. Factories range from small workshops to large export-focused manufacturers with dedicated hotel project lines.
For a hotel project, target factories that:
- Have a track record of supplying hotel projects of comparable scale (not just residential or office)
- Can provide references or case studies showing projects in your destination market
- Have their own veneer slicing or purchasing operation — factories that buy pre-sliced veneer from a third party have less control over consistency
- Have in-house finishing capability (lacquer line) rather than outsourcing finishing
- Are ISO 9001 certified and have export documentation experience
Avoid factories that cannot provide a project reference list, that are unwilling to allow pre-shipment inspection, or that quote unusually low prices without explanation — typically a sign of material or process substitution.
The Sampling Process
For hotel projects, door samples are non-negotiable. The sampling process typically runs:
- Finish samples — veneer and lacquer finish samples (typically A3 or A4 panels) for designer sign-off on species, grain, and sheen. This step often runs 2–3 rounds before approval.
- Mock-up door — a full-size sample door in the approved specification, including hardware prep and any vision panel or feature detail. This is assessed in person by the designer or client representative before mass production is authorised.
- Production hold sample — one approved sample door is retained at the factory as the production reference standard.
Allow 4–6 weeks for the sampling process before mass production begins. Projects that skip sampling and go direct to production almost always require rework.
Production QC and Pre-Shipment Inspection
For a hotel door package of 300–500 sets, at minimum two QC checkpoints are recommended:
Mid-production inspection: Typically at 30–50% completion. Checks veneer consistency, finish quality, hardware prep accuracy, and dimensional tolerance against approved samples. Catching issues at this stage allows correction before the full quantity is produced.
Pre-shipment inspection: Before goods are loaded. A statistically representative sample of completed doors is inspected against the specification and approved production hold sample. Inspection covers finish, dimensions, hardware prep, edge treatment, and packaging.
Inspections should be conducted by an independent inspector or your sourcing agent — not by the factory’s own QC team.
Lead Times and Logistics
For a 200-room hotel door package (400–600 door sets), plan for the following timeline from order confirmation:
- Sampling: 4–6 weeks
- Mass production: 45–60 days
- Inspection and export documentation: 1–2 weeks
- Sea freight to destination: 14–35 days depending on destination port
Total door-to-site lead time from order: 14–18 weeks. This needs to align with the fit-out start date on the construction programme. In practice, doors are one of the earlier items to order on a hotel project — order too late and the fit-out contractor is waiting.
Sourcing Hotel Wooden Doors from China
FBM Sourcing manages wooden door procurement for hotel and hospitality projects across the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. We handle factory identification, specification matching, sampling coordination, production QC, and freight.
If you have a door schedule, FF&E specification, or project brief, contact us and we will assess your requirements and provide indicative pricing within 5 business days.
Related reading: See our guide on when your project requires fire-rated doors, and how a door sourcing agent in China manages the end-to-end procurement process.
