How Hotels Choose Luxury Bathroom Amenities

Luxury hotels spend an awful lot of time – sometimes years – looking for the very best bathroom amenities, and what they end up deciding on can tell you a lot about the property. Here, two hotel companies divulge their bathroom amenity selection secrets.

Four Seasons and Sofitel are currently going through a shake-up in their bathroom amenities selections, a process both companies have been working on for multiple years. The bathroom amenities tell a lot about the quality of a hotel, so it’s important for both chains to make the right choice.

“At first, we had the idea of capturing a sense of place in a literal way, by finding local products,” Isabelle Laroque, the director of product development for Four Seasons, told Skift. “But as the process went along, we decided that luxury transcended place.”

Laroque moved to scouring the luxury amenities markets, including retail, to see what would resonate most with guests at the hotels. She also considered gender – opting for something unisex that doesn’t have an overwhelming scent – and packaging.

“We prefer packaging that is more reflective of the actual retail product,” she told Skift. “We also consider how bottles feel, how the product flows out of the bottle, how easy the screw cap is to open … every aspect. Can you read the label without putting on your reading glasses?”

Sofitel went through a similar process, aiming for a selection of luxury products in several different lines based on location of the corresponding hotel. But in one way, the selection process was easier – the French company wanted to stay with French products.

“Since Sofitel is a French brand and we carry that in our DNA, as an ambassador of France, our amenity brands must be French,” Joao Rocco, Sofitel’s vice president for luxury brand management, told Skift.

[Photo: Shutterstock]