There’s new action on the olfactory floor: Customised fragrances in hotels

Scents make sense in the luxury hotels business, as it is getting more and more difficult to rustle up new accoutrements to tempt the jaded palates of their wealthy clients.

Pampering one of the other senses instead — their olfactory one — is an obvious choice. More so as aromas form such an important part of memory. It is not surprising at all, therefore, that upscale hostelries and serviced apartments in major western cities sniff a good opportunity and are now curating just the right bouquet of fragrances to tempt their guests noses, in the air or otherwise.

What could be more gratifying than the smell of a summer garden in the middle of a New York winter, for instance? The downside, of course, is that familiar smells are not always pleasant ones and normally well received scents can evoke the odd contrarian reaction if the whiff harks back to an annoying person, place or incident. Indians cannot but be aware of how much smells — not necessarily those of the ammoniac or sulphurous variety commonly found — epitomise (and permeate) places, including hotels.

While luxury hotels in India may, indeed, be redolent of lavender, jasmine or citrus, lodgings of less rarefied genres invariably smell of food, the top notes varying between garlic, garam masala, mustard oil, asafoetida and curry leaves depending on their location. Not all their guests may regard these as essentially unpleasant, of course.