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It's a common question often asked by guests: Why do hotels smell so good?
Whether you realize it or not, you have powerful memories and emotions tied to your sense of smell. For this reason, smell plays a big part in your opinions about places, purchases and experiences. Hotels around the world, from luxury chains to independent bed & breakfasts, have learned this important lesson.
Big brands spend big sums of money designing the perfect olfactory experience to go with their product, and hotels are no exception. Specialists help hotels design exclusive fragrances that evoke feelings such as romance, energy, fun or relaxation. Fragrance systems pump scents into hotel lobbies, gyms, spas and meeting rooms, all with the goal of enhancing the experience the hotel wants guests to have.
So why do hotels smell so good? Here's everything you need to know.
It's time to uncover the hidden secrets of olfactory experiences at hotel brands around the world and give yourself some ideas for capturing that scent for yourself.
Why do hotels focus on smell?
It may seem at first that smells are an odd thing for a brand to focus on. After all, you can't take perfume home with you (or can you? More on that later), and the smell of something is impossible to share on Instagram. Guests may not even be fully aware of the smell in a hotel and often won't be able to identify the specific odor they are smelling.
So why bother looking for the right fragrance and investing in diffusion machinery?
The answer lies in how smells are processed in the human brain. Although scientists now claim that humans can detect over 1 trillion odors, we don't have trillion words to describe those scents. Instead, according to an article in Discover Magazine, “information travels from the nose directly to the cortical areas of the brain to elicit emotions and memories without our knowledge. When it comes to smells, people can be influenced and not realize it."
That's why the smell of lilacs can bring you back to your grandmother's garden in an instant, or why a whiff of coconut could make you feel the instant relaxation of a beach vacation. Scents are strongly linked to emotions and long-term memories and help create our experiences as well as help us remember them.
So while you may not be able to name the scent around you, it will likely have a powerful effect on your mood and behavior.
If you're running a hotel, you have a huge opportunity to distinguish yourself using perfume. Only 3% of Fortune 1000 companies use perfume as part of their experience. By going beyond the visual experience you provide, you create deeper and more lasting connections with your guests.
Hotels around the world are starting to use scent as part of an overall brand experience. A distinctive scent can be combined with interior design, lighting and more to create the right ambiance and impress your guests.
Perfumes commonly used in hotels
While the ideas behind skin scents and room scents are similar, it's important for hotels to use a fragrance designed specifically for large buildings. Perfumes must be lighter, less diluted and have nothing artificial to win over the public. Room fragrances should be professionally diffused (via the ventilation system or self-contained units) so that guests are not overwhelmed.
Most brands choose to avoid scents that are overly feminine or masculine, instead finding ingredients that have mass appeal and are less easily defined. Strong floral scents and sweet fruits such as peach, strawberry and banana are also best avoided.
Good choices for scents in hotels include sandalwood, vanilla, cedar, lemon blossom, citrus, neroli, leather, and white tea. You can then add less common scents specific to your hotel experience, such as verbena, lemon, jasmine, coconut, patchouli, lavender and more.
And that fresh fragrance on the hotel sheets? It's probably just commercial grade detergent and lots of bleach.
What technology do hotels use to diffuse perfumes?
Properly blanketing your lobby, spa, restaurant, gym, and guestroom areas with signature scents requires more than a few candles or reed diffusers. Most hotels use fragrance systems designed for large commercial spaces to achieve the desired effect. Sometimes nice reed diffusers are displayed for decoration.
Our Essenzapura scent atomisers cover a wide range of needs, from the small unit for a single room, to big diffusers for a large lobby, halls and so on.
These systems can be integrated into the ventilation system or can be self-contained units positioned in strategic areas. Spas and fitness centers often use smaller diffusers, suited to the size of small equipped areas. For individual guest rooms, in addition to using the air conditioning system, hotels often create sprays or toiletries with their own scents.
Tips for hotels to keep things smelling good
If you run a hotel and aren't quite ready for olfactory branding consultants, expensive aeration systems, and signature scents, there's still a lot you can do to keep your property smelling fresh. Here are some things to try:
- Keep humidity at bay. Humidity and humidity are the number one cause of bad smells in commercial spaces. You can combat dampness by making sure your laundry is completely dry before making the beds, opening doors and windows when possible, and using fans to dry carpets and upholstery after steam cleaning.
- If you suspect mold or fungi, contact professionals. Places like elevator shafts, basements and garbage collection rooms are prone to mold and will need to be cleaned regularly by a professional to keep odors away.
- Avoid spray perfumes, which are often overpowering in small spaces and can smell too artificial
- Use a different scent in the bathrooms. The last thing you want is for your guests to think that the whole hotel smells like the bathroom.
- Schedule professional furniture deodorization regularly.
- Change the air filters regularly and keep the ventilation system clean.
- Don't overdo it with perfumes. The goal is for things to smell clean and fresh and blend into the background, not for them to become overpowering.