Holiday Season Inspiration | From a Gingerbread Wonderland and festive scents to a photobooth
Photobooth in your lobby during the Holiday Season - generated with AI
A Christmas-themed photo corner - generated with AI
A gingerbread house in a lobby - generated with AI
Text on the mirrors in the ladies’ restroom - generated with AI
As we mentioned last week, it’s the perfect time to start planning for the holidays. Apparently, some hospitality venues are already fully booked for the Christmas Days! In October, we’re publishing a short weekly article full of inspiration; this week’s highlights include a Gingerbread Wonderland, festive scents in hotel rooms, a Christmas photobooth, messages on mirrors in restrooms, holiday fun, and a special way to unbox your Christmas boxes. By the way, you can find even more ideas on our Pinterest Christmas board.
2 minutes read
Gingerbread Wonderland
Last year, Fairmont San Francisco featured a life-size gingerbread house in the lobby! So big you could walk through it and, as we heard, even eat it. It stood around 7 meters tall and was made from over 8,000 gingerbread bricks and more than 900 kilos of candy. In the link in the title, you can find a blog about creating this Gingerbread Wonderland in their lobby. A unique place to dine in your lobby is a fun idea, right? They also have a Santa Suite, described as “Santa and Mrs. Claus’s San Francisco home away from the North Pole!” In the past we also wrote about a dining pop up on the rooftop of the Berkeley hotel in London, featuring an authentic alpine menu to be enjoyed from the comfort of custom-made ski gondolas.
Dit bericht op Instagram bekijken
Christmas scents in your hotel rooms
Scents are becoming increasingly popular in the hotel industry, as research shows they can positively enhance the guest experience and trigger memories. For example, the Efteling already uses this approach, and it’s always fun to offer something special for your hotel guests. You could place pine branches with a few Christmas ornaments, or add cinnamon sticks into a small decoration. We’ve also spotted hotels where guests could request a small decorated Christmas tree in their room in advance! For more inspiration, like Christmas-themed rooftops, check out our 2021 Christmas inspiration booklet. In a restaurant, we’d think you should leave it to the smells coming from the kitchen! 😉
A Christmas-themed photo corner or a photobooth
A fun memory for your guests! We have an old photo in a festive Christmas setting hanging in our kitchen, taken in the photobooth at the Conservatorium Hotel in Amsterdam. A professional photobooth works great, but you can also create a fun spot where guests can take their own photos. For example, we came across an old-fashioned bathtub filled with plastic Christmas ornaments, quite funny, right? On our Pinterest page, you can find several examples of such Instagrammable spots! If you create a great spot and you want to share it, let us know!
“You look very Christmassy” | Text on the mirrors in the ladies’ restroom
So simple and easy: write a fun, cute, or cheeky message on the mirrors in red lipstick! Like for example ‘You look very Christmassy’. Maybe the men will appreciate it too, but we’d start with the ladies’ restroom.
Christmas Fun
A few fun examples where guests have a great time! A few years ago we had the ‘Ugly Christmas Sweater’ parties, and last year there was HUMBUG’s Christmas Dive Bar! At this Dive Bar, guests stepped into Santa’s favorite pub, where an incredible world of live performances, sing-alongs, games, immersive stories, and festive activities awaited! Along with a progressively tired Santa who needed cheering up!
Put your own spin on a Christmas Dive Bar that’s fun to visit with friends, great family members or colleagues. It reminded us, on a very different level, of ‘Christmas afternoon’ in Hengelo, as shared in 2015 by our former colleague Bram Kosterink.
HUMBUG Christmas Dive Bar – credits Grant Walker
Unboxing supermarket Christmas collections
‘Unbox’ videos on social media are always very popular. Young colleagues love watching TikToks of people opening all the Christmas cookies, candies, and treats from foreign supermarkets, and those TikTok’s get a lot of views! One idea for this year: if you’re selling your Christmas dinner boxes again, have them unboxed by a local influencer. We’ve included an example of such a TikTok in the link in the title.
