There is an emerging trend of luxury hotels offering experiential welcome amenities. In line with luxury travelers’ increasing desire for experiences vs. material possessions, these amenities encourage creativity and discovery through interactive activities that reflect the sensibility of the hotel and the hotel’s destination.
Here are a few examples of new experiential amenities we’ve come across:
- At Rosewood San Miguel de Allende, a luxury boutique hotel located in a historic artists’ village in central Mexico, guests are welcomed with an easel in their room, complete with paints and tools so that they can create their own works to take home. Ideal for families, the kit includes both an adult-sized easel as well as a kid-sized easel, and a card with a description of the paints and tools.
- Upon arrival at The Lodge at Glendorn, the Relaix & Chateaux property located on 1,500 acres in Bradford, Pennsylvania and featuring rustic-luxe accommodations, guests are given a welcome amenity of fish food that they can use to use to feed the fish at Glendorn’s onsite hatchery. The property also stocks guest cabins with fly rods fully rigged with flies and gear for fly-fishing excursions.
- At Miraval Resort & Spa, the luxury destination spa in Tucson, Arizona, guests receive a ‘seed bomb’, a compressed bundle of soil containing seeds which guests are encouraged to plant during their stay to create a flowering landscape and help guests shift into a mindful and present state – one that is essential for a powerful Miraval experience.
With properties of all levels striving for differentiation and to stand apart with a more localised experience for guests, this trend looks to be one that is here to stay. Has your property come up with outside-the-box amenities? One clever idea may spark many others, so please share your initiatives in the Comments section below, or email us at news@ehotelier.com and we’ll add them to the story.
