Know-How Exchange : Customer Behavior

Bright colors, absolutely, as it is what your customers will be looking for. To stay modern, offset blocks of color with some white trim to help the colors stand out and to keep it all looking fresh, especially on the exterior.

With multiple colors, it's important to mix cool colors (cyan-range blues, sea greens) with the hot ones (sunny yellow, hot pink, orange or lime) to break things up. If you put cool colors on the major interior walls, and save the hot colors for accent walls, then your customers will feel "cool" even on hot days, without sacrificing any of the fun of the colors. Feeling comfortable always helps encourage folks to return.

But before you paint your walls, consider your marketing -- website, signs, menus, rack cards in area hotels. Choose colors that will work throughout your entire enterprise, even if you're not ready to create marketing materials yet. Make sure your logo looks good against all your color choices. Colors all have number codes these days, and when you get the code from any one system (e.g., web colors), you can get them mixed to match in another system (e.g., paint colors).

Here are two fun tools for playing around with colors to find the best ones, and the colors come with color codes so you can match them across your business:
To get color blends: www.design-lib.com/color_tool_mixer.php
To get color groupings: www.kuler.adobe.com

We'll all be down to see you just as soon as we can retire!

If your objective is to energize, red is the color for you. Being on the Mexican Carribean coast, a red/orange blend could be a winner. If on the other hand, your intent is to create a soothing environment, blues and greens would complement the beach setting. Whatever you choose, check out lighting possibilities to play up the logo and to create an ambiance. Good luck!