When Hans van Wees, general manager of Hotel Vermont in Burlington, set out to design an inviting arrival for guests, choosing the hotel’s scent became one of the most deliberated decisions.
“The moment you walk into a building, you get a sense of where you are,” Van Wees said. “Part of how you get that sense is what you see, what you hear, how people approach you and what it smells like.”
The new 125-room boutique hotel needed a fragrance that complemented its contemporary yet timeless design, emphasized local ingredients and reflected New England culture. “We’re not trying to be trendy,” Van Wees said. “We’re not trying to be exclusive. We like to think of ourselves as thoughtful in terms of design as well as services we offer.”
Even a week before the May 2013 opening, the team was still refining the scent. Van Wees compared ignoring smell to sitting down to a gourmet meal and fine wine without pausing to breathe in the aromas.
Hotel Vermont is one of many properties turning to aromatherapy to shape guest experience—evoking the hotel’s woodsy, natural setting or suggesting a sense of luxury, as with the ginger flower scent used by Langham hotels.
The aromatherapy sector has been growing rapidly. In the United States the market rose 17.7 percent in 2012 compared with the previous year, and retail sales topped $31.9 million, according to industry reporting.
Hotels are tapping this growth to capture and reproduce the experience of staying in a particular property: a signature scent can make a place instantly recognizable and memorable.
Boutique properties often use scent to evoke local character. Van Wees turned to Lunaroma, a Burlington, Vermont aromatherapy shop, to create Hotel Vermont’s spa amenities and ambient fragrances.
“The quality and the product specifications needed to be there, but it absolutely in our mind had to be local,” Van Wees said. “Memories are created not just by visual and auditory senses, but all the senses.”
Dukes St. James in London took a similarly local approach. Located near the historic perfume house Floris, the hotel adopted Floris candles and floral touches that recall the English countryside—hyacinth, bluebell and fresh freesia are part of the sensory identity guests encounter.
By contrast, larger hotel groups often use scent to reinforce brand loyalty. Bob van den Oord, vice president of brands for Langham Hospitality Group, said The Langham’s ginger flower fragrance has remained a constant: guests can recognize the hotel by that aroma across locations from London to Hong Kong to Shanghai. The Fragrance of Langham is also sold as a bottled room scent in hotel shops and distributed through central air systems.
Mandarin Oriental takes a middle path: group fragrances share citrusy tea notes but vary by property to reflect local character, according to Andrea Lomas, head of group spa operations. For example, Mandarin Oriental, New York uses a Profumi d’Ambiente scent that echoes the hotel’s signature Mandarin Blossom tea—notes of orange, tea and cypress flow through corridors. Mandarin Oriental, Las Vegas uses scent sticks that evolve from crisp citrus to green floral and bamboo woods, while the Landmark Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong employs a diffuser blending citrus, ginger, pepper and iris on a woody base.
Langham is updating spa offerings as well, collaborating with award-winning perfumer Laura Tonatto to create a new in-room amenities fragrance inspired by the five elements of Traditional Chinese Medicine, with a bergamot base.
Hotel Vermont’s selection process took more than a year and involved staff testing and refining many options. Employees worked with Lunaroma to prioritize indigenous ingredients and crafted about 16 blends to test.
“We literally sat around a table with strips of paper, just scenting these aromas,” Van Wees said. Between sniffs, staff cleared their noses with freshly roasted coffee beans. They narrowed the choices to five, then to two or three finalists.
The final program includes a hotel-wide cedar and lavender scent with evergreen notes; lemon and eucalyptus shampoo; a rosewood-bergamot conditioner; and a shower gel blending lemon, grapefruit and orange. The bedtime menu offers aromatherapy treatments to help guests relax and sleep—befitting Vermont’s reputation as a restful destination.
Signature Scents
Many hotels now promote bespoke fragrances as part of their identity. Marti Istanbul Hotel worked with Istanbul-based SCENTLINQ to select a white tea scent with fresh, sweet accents that is diffused throughout the property.
Gramercy Park Hotel in New York features Cade 26 by Le Labo, an exclusive smoky signature scent available for purchase. Lungarno Collection offers Tuscan Soul by Salvatore Ferragamo, a line that captures the freshness and refined floral and woody notes of Tuscany, available in select suites in Florence and Rome.
The Renaissance Blackstone in Chicago uses a shiso tea leaf fragrance combining tea, citrus leaves, mint and white florals to create a distinctive welcome. Dolder Grand in Zürich provides specialty scent boxes in its main building and partners with local perfumers for a fresh lemon aroma in its spa to promote relaxation and refreshment.
At Omni Bedford Springs Resort, the Springs Eternal Spa collaborated with Soy Beam, Inc. to survey indigenous plants across the property and produce a signature honeysuckle-cucumber blend created from local botanicals.
Four Seasons Buenos Aires greets guests with Bayo, a signature scent crafted by Fueguia 1833 from organic, native ingredients that reflect Argentina’s diverse ecosystems. The light, ethereal fragrance serves an aromatherapeutic function while representing the sophisticated, nature-minded lifestyle of local Porteños.
Across the hotel industry, carefully chosen scents—whether rooted in locale, brand or botanicals—have become a subtle but powerful tool for creating consistent, memorable guest experiences.