Five-Star Stores

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The days when the hotel gift shop was pretty much limited to magazines and overpriced toothbrushes are long gone at some of L.A.’s high-end hotels.


Today, you can find Italian furniture, art and even the hotel’s brand of mattresses. Many of the items bear the hotel’s name or logo. The shops are designed to provide a reminder or keepsake that will keep the hotel experience high in customers’ minds.


“Branding is important,” said Alan X. Reay, president of Atlas Hospitality Group in Irvine. “The higher the brand, the more important the sale is of other products.”


The Roosevelt Hotel recently opened a store inside the hotel called Thompson Xchange to extend its brand and create a new revenue stream. Among the offerings are high-end Kiki de Montparnasse “intimacy kits,” which include mints, lubricants and other such items for upwards of $165; a book by Ron Galella, whose art is featured in the hotel; Fornasetti furniture from Italy; sculptures and other home d & #233;cor; as well as beauty products, apparel, and retro toys.


“The Thompson Xchange stores provide our guests with the opportunity to take home the Thompson Hotels’ lifestyle that they experience when they stay in our hotels,” said Jason Pomeranc, the co-owner of the New York-based Thompson Hotels, which owns the famous hotel on Hollywood Boulevard.


Although the Thompson Xchange does not sell what guests see and use in their rooms, some other Los Angeles hotel shops do. The Beverly Hilton has an online site where people can purchase the kinds of mattresses and sheets used at the hotel as well as the towels, bathrobes, corkscrews and notepads.


The service was added at the end of 2005. It has been profitable since, said Lynda Simonetti, the director of public relations for the Beverly Hilton.


“The brand has a personality and those qualities that shape the look and feel at every touch point of the hotel experience are brought forth through these branded products,” she said.

The hotel also has several outside retailers on the ground floor, which add to the branding of the hotel. They include a fine wine and chocolate boutique, a watchmaker and an art gallery that is being built.


Pomeranc said that there is a developing need for the kind of shop he opened at the Roosevelt. And while the items are priced higher than they might be at other outlets, some hotel customers don’t care.


“Guests are increasing their spending within our hotels, whether it is through our destination restaurants or our popular bars and lounges, or through some of the items we offer through our minibars,” Pomeranc said.

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