FAIRFIELD, NJ— As hotels within all segments of the lodging industry continually try to outdo each other by providing better and better amenities, furnishings and soft goods in their guest-rooms, there is one byproduct of this competition that hotels might not have envisioned: guests might eventually want to buy those same high-end hotel room features for their homes.
Very often that is becoming the case today, as guests are now asking hotel employees such questions as: How can I buy that pillow I slept on in my room? And with necessity being the mother of invention, hotel staff members are now able to answer that question with actual product ordering information, because hotel brand companies and other third-party firms are now providing catalogs, websites and services that can ultimately bring those enhanced hotel room products into guests’ homes.
Helping to feed this trend and satisfy hotel guests’ requests is Hotels at Home, which has become one of several firms in this burgeoning sector of the global hotel business. Based in Fairfield, NJ, the company was originally founded in the late 1980s and has been following this hotel-retail trend ever since.
“In the late 1980s, Hotels at Home designed its first hotel catalog focusing on extending the hotel brand into guests homes,” explained Robin Ware, a Hotels at Home co-owner and its vp of operations. “Hotels at Home was founded to respond to guests’ desires to purchase products that they enjoyed during their stay at luxury hotels. The Hotels at Home retail catalog program is also a powerful marketing tool for these elite hotel properties. What can be better than a guest, who purchases for his home the bed and bedding that he fell in love with during his stay? Whenever this guest travels in the future you can be certain that he will want to sleep in his own bed while on the road. This guest will be a loyal customer to that hotel chain for life.”
Since the late 1980s, Hotels at Home has gone on to establish online catalogs and individual websites for its hotel clients and property-specific collateral pieces that are placed in hotel guestrooms. It has also formed strong relationships with product manufacturers and vendors. And today, with the escalating amenities wars being waged between hotel companies, the company’s services are seemingly becoming more useful than ever, Ware said.
“Our primary customer is the hotel that comes to us to create a guest purchase program. Hotels have begun to realize that this type of retail program can not only provide incremental revenue but also, more significantly, provide marketing and branding for the hotel itself,” Ware noted. “As hotels realize this fact and come to us to create these programs, their guests have become our customers.
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“Furthermore, as the hospitality industry began their upgrades and renovations, they realized that their guests want more than just a clean room,” she added. “They also want a great sleeping experience. As hotels are fulfilling that wish, guests are enjoying their hotel stays more than ever and they want to bring that experience home with them. Most of us have eight- to 15-year-old mattresses at home and hotels now have beds with the newest comfort technology that are no more than three- to four-years-old. To make the beds even more inviting, many hotel beds are now dressed with sumptuous down blankets and luxurious feather and down pillows.”
Many companies are looking to emulate Hotels at Home’s strategy in its hotel-retail sales arena by developing programs through which they can sell hotel products to consumers. However, Ware said that the other companies in this business haven’t gotten to the point where they are true full-service firms.
“We really don’t have competition in the sense that there are companies that are strictly fulfillment companies and others that are call centers, but not one company provides the complete set of services that we do,” Ware said. “We have our own design team, information technology department and logistics group. Our call center is open six days a week, with the addition of Sunday this holiday season. When a guest calls, they don’t hear an automated system. We have highly trained concierge representatives answering the phones. We have offices in the U.S., Europe, and Canada. We are privately owned, and our management is always onsite ensuring that every guest who calls receives the highest level of concierge service.”
To keep in front of its prospective competition, Ware said that Hotels at Home has focused on international travelers. As a result, the company opened a location in Paris two years ago and, just last month, a location in Canada.
Customer Service
These offices allow Hotels at Home to keep nearly all of its work in-house, including order taking, IT, design, fulfillment, shipping and logistics. An onsite warehouse stocked with nearly every popular hotel item supports those functions. The warehouse does not, however, contain furniture.
“Guests sometimes request furniture as well as other unique items that are beyond the scope of our catalog, but that doesn’t stop us.” Ware said. “We are not a traditional call center. If the guest is requesting an item that is not available in a hotel’s catalog, we will research that item and do our best to make it available to them, just as you’d request the assistance of a hotel concierge in the hopes to obtain tickets to a sold-out concert or show.”
While pillows, beds, blankets, robes and bath amenities remain Hotels at Home’s most highly-requested items, Ware noted that more recently people have begun to ask about wall paper and even specific paint colors. “It may have taken us a couple of days to research, but we have even provided guests with information on a requested paint color on the wall of a guest-room,” she pointed out. “At Hotels at Home, it’s all about providing the ultimate level of concierge service and exceeding guest expectations.”