I received another news release recently alerting me to another partnership between a hotel brand chain and a perfumery, or preferably, I would guess, “une parfumerie.”
Perfumes, perfumed candles and mini perfume spray mists are available to purchase. These scents are sprayed across lobbies and corridors to assuage and reassure us.
I recall that Langham Hotels & Resorts was the first to create a scent with its Ginger Flower, which I thought probably was decades old but in truth was first introduced in 2013 when Langham opened the 234-room Langham, New York.
Another online source stated Langham debuted this scent when its Sydney hotel opened, and yet another stated the scent was around before then — waiting, watching, wafting, presumably?
More recently, Rosewood Hotels & Resorts launched its Bois Cachemire scent, which “was born at the crossroads of the 14th and 21st centuries, a fragrance that balances history with modernity, evoking the romance of grand voyages.”
Marriott International’s Edition Hotels got together with Le Labo to create a signature scent that is “a blended version of black tea and bergamot that invokes a sense of comfort and exoticism.” Also, Marriott's brand St. Regis often presses the actuator for a scent named Caroline’s Four Hundred, inspired by New York City’s gilded age.
Accor brand Fairmont Hotels & Resorts also partners with Le Labo, in its case with a perfume called Rose 31.
There must be others, so I apologize if I have missed any.
We can be amused at some of the verbiage surrounding all of this, but perfume must have a very important part in profitability.
It is not just about selling scents, soaps and sprays, but the real value comes after the guest has gone home.
Steven Shapiro, The Hotel Law Brief, wrote last June about the matter.
He said, “high-end hotels … develop signature scents, [which] … aren’t just there to smell nice. They’re protected. Licensed. Sometimes even trademarked. Why? Because sensory memory drives brand recall. That scent is just as valuable, legally and psychologically, as the logo above the entrance.”
Shapiro is 100% correct — a smell has the instant ability to transform one back to where one first smelled it, and with that smell comes memories, a sense of usually feeling wonderful about a moment and a recognition of place, people and — certainly when one is in a hotel — enjoyment.
The same could be true of the smell that pops out at one when eating a warm chocolate cookie. I imagine many people in that situation might think of one of Hilton’s brands.
According to Science magazine, humans have “400 different olfactory receptors that are thought to enable the nose to detect billions of odors.”
That we can take those smells and make immediate associations is incredibly powerful to marketers and probably to loyalty-program shapers, too.
Ears are very powerful tools, too, but eyes, I would proffer, less so, in terms of recollection.
I was in a company-held pub quiz a very years ago, and one of the rounds comprised a sheet of paper in which hotel-brand logos, minus any names, were displayed.
One point was scored for each one we knew, and they were brands from all around the planet.
I do not think anyone in the quiz did well in that round.
I would say if what we had to link was a smell and a brand-chain name we would have done much, much better.
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