EXPERIENCE SELLING: Selling More Than Just Rooms
by Chris McBeath

Where once hotels were just a place to bed down for the night, today it’s all about “the experience”. The more all-encompassing the stay, the more the travel-wise guest will want to take a part of it back home. Or at least, that’s the hope, let alone the competitive edge when it comes to parlaying room sales into much more.

BUNDLE A BED
Three hundred count linens, down-filled hypoallergenic pillows, and monogrammed bathrobes have been a marketing ploy for some time. Indeed, retailing bedroom accessories has been so successful that several major chains have created entire marketing departments, catalogues, and sophisticated online shopping centres to sell a good night’s sleep even for Fido! Usually, the mattress/boxspring sets are made exclusively for the chain in question - heavenly or not. But beds alone are no longer enough, and to sweeten the sale, beds are being bundled into value-added packages. For example, buy a Four Seasons bed (Julia Roberts said her favourite thing to do in New York was “to sleep in a Four Seasons bed”), and you’ll receive a bundle that includes additional down pillows, one set of Rivolta Egyptian cotton linens, a 100% goose down duvet and an embroidered duvet cover.

Creating a feel and a brand identity is marketing’s tour de force, and very much a part of selling the experience. If you haven’t got a shop online yet, you’re in the dark ages.

NO LINE-UPS ONLINE
Online product availability is core to successful extension sales, and your virtual storefront needs to be up front and centre on the home page. Sandals Resorts makes online shopping easy to find and navigate, enabling you to shop by department or by featured item. Because weddings and romance are big business at these resorts, items such as champagne flutes, a sunhat for the bride, and signature luggage enable friends to get in on the wedding act, invited or not! 

Larger chains have chosen to set up separate sites for shopping. Visit www.shopmarriott.com and you can purchase a range of home furnishings and accents such as Kashwere furniture, throw blankets and robes (an item beloved by Oprah), framed photography, shower curtains and rods, and of course, the one-of-a-kind Marriott mattress and Revive bedding collection. Guests can also choose from pajama options, the exclusive “Marriott Red” luggage by Samsonite, Swiss Army golf tools, and Zagat To Go software.

Check out www.fairmontstores.com, just launched this month. “Initially, the website features bedding products, Miller Harris and Willow Stream amenities, and Fairmont branded tea, with other products to follow later in the year and in 2008,” explains Mike Taylor at Fairmont Hotels & Resorts. “The onsite store helps to broaden our product range and reach, while introducing new customers to the Fairmont experience.”

The chain’s Lounging musical CDs have proven so popular that, in anticipation of customer demand, Fairmont has produced 30,000 copies of the third CD, in the series, which went on sale in May.

For the Kor Hotel Group, Shop Kor promotes the group’s three exclusive signature collections, from bath to décor, all of which are modelled in the different designs of each of Kor’s distinctive hotels. Products include parrot-green Italian urns from Viceroy Santa Monica, Silhouette black and white wall coverings from Viceroy Palm Springs and, when the Loden Vancouver opens this fall, the site will be relaunched to include West Coast-themed items.

ON TARGET CREATIVITY
Although online shopping is the current “must-have” element in experience marketing, there are many properties that have minimal or no Internet shopping presence; they simply rely on fertile imaginations to fuel the bedroom’s bottom line. At the Hotel Ganswvoort, located in Manhattan’s vibrant meatpacking district, in-room mini bars are moving away from the typical chips and soda contents to healthier snacking options like fibre-rich Gnu bars and heart-healthy POM juice in an effort to drive more bar revenue. Bars are even stocked with “The Mini Mile-High Kit” (retailing at US $19.50) that contains all the items needed to enjoy a racy night: condoms, lubricant, and a discreet mini massager. 

In South Beach, the Catalina Hotel customizes mini-bars with a program called “Pimp My Fridge”. Starting at US $50, themed mini-bar options include the “Rock Star Mini-Bar” stocked with the requisite vodka, cigarettes, Krispy Cremes, and Red Bull as well as morning after Alka Seltzer, Visine, a chilled eye mask, and of course, Gatorade with electrolytes. There’s a “Munchie Mini-Bar” to fulfill sweet and salty tastes with Cheetos and cheesecake, and a “Get It On” package that comes with edible body paint, champagne, whipped cream, maraschino cherries, strawberries, scented candles, massage oil, and a Barry White CD.

ARTFUL TOUCH
When The Listel Hotel created its gallery floors in 1997, it was an inspired partnership with the Vancouver Art Gallery. In 2000, the program was expanded to include the Museum of Anthropology, and by the end of 2007, you can expect to see a photography floor added to the mix. Although many properties feature art for sale, usually on their walls, the Listel was among the first to embrace the concept to the point where entire floors were renovated into galleries. Ten years later, indigenous art is all the rage, promoting some sort of locally produced artistic endeavour in guestrooms, on dining tables, public lounges and meeting rooms is commonplace. Discretion, however, is fast becoming the better part of salesmanship since travellers can quickly tire of the omnipresent price tag - unless of course, it’s the newly opened Lancaster Arts Hotel in Pasadena. As its name implies, art is intrinsic to the hotel and its market position as the pre-eminent showcase of the local art scene. Area artists have even adopted entire suites. If you want the headboard from your bed, you can buy it. If you want the enormous tobacco leaf chairs in the lobby (the hotel’s located in a former tobacco warehouse), consider it sold. 

ECO-CONSCIOUS
Green has leapt to the forefront as both a political and economic priority, and increasingly guests are selecting hotels for their eco-awareness. Hotels need to get onto the certified organic bandwagon, whether it’s selling organic, earth-friendly loungewear (check out “bgreen” organic lifestyle apparel and Toronto’s Passenger Pigeon clothing), non-toxic care products (Seaflora just introduced a skincare line using Vancouver Island’s outer coast seaweed), and the all-natural rosehip oils from Hills Health Ranch. “For us, the oils are a part of the health experience we sell at the ranch,” says owner Pat Corbett. “Our retail items include take-home fitness tools and learning materials - books, CDs, and our own cookbook, all of which are designed to help guests make their wellness experience here a part of their ongoing lifestyle. The oils are synonymous with the ranch and an important component of our spa treatments. I would venture to say that we’re the only spa in North America to make our own chemical-free oils from our own wild plants with the R&D investment to back up our work.”

For all the tangible items a hotel can offer to sell, there’s another wave that’s rolling in fast and furious from the horizon. The fusion fad may have started with food and décor, but it’s no longer confined to an East-West blend. The trend is to explore even more diverse crossovers and ethnicities, and as such, product fusion is raising global consciousness. Suppliers are now aligning themselves with fair trade co-operatives in developing countries, or donating a serious percentage of profits to causes that not only reflect their values, but also where they feel they can really make a difference. Consumers are starting to ask, “How is your product giving back?” and “What is your company doing to support the greater good?” The hospitality industry is in the business of creating a caring experience, and the time is now to sell holistically, not only to the benefit of the individual, but also to the benefit of a broader recipient, Mother Earth!