As a hospitality entrepreneur, it is not only important that your guests enjoy tasty dishes, but also that you create a unique experience. After all, you want your catering establishment to stand out and keep guests coming back, don't you! In this blog, you will discover how to use scent experience in the hospitality industry to entice your guests and take their experience to an even higher level.
Scent and taste are inseparable. In fact, research (Gordon M. Herder, 2012) shows that scent is the most important component of taste. This is because scent signals are linked via our nose to our taste buds in the mouth. You may have noticed yourself that if you pinch your nose shut, little flavour remains. Not very surprising, but there is more!
In fact, did you know that smell also plays a role in triggering appetite? For instance, the hormone ghrelin, which is released when we are hungry, makes us more sensitive to the smells of food. Research (Son HFA, De Graaf C and Boesveldt S. Foods, 2016) has even shown that smelling appetising odours increases our desire for food. Consider sweet smells like Black Dahlia = and Wild Fig, for example, which reinforce our desire for a sweet taste, while savoury smells like rosemary reinforce our desire for a savoury taste.
Furthermore, thematising your hospitality venue is another effective way to deploy fragrance. By choosing a clear theme, you can spread the right fragrance to match the desired atmosphere. For example, do you want to create a worldly atmosphere? Choose scents such as Marrakesh Market or Sandalwood. Prefer the nostalgic experience of grandmother's apple pie? Then go for Sweet Apple Pie. And if you think scent experience alone adds value, you're wrong!
Similarly, it is important to pay attention to unwanted odours. Besides whetting appetites and creating the right atmosphere, it is also important to counteract the strong smell of, say, beer or sweat. And this is where the problem-solving side of scent perception comes in. In this case, we often choose Lemon & Vanilla, a neutralising scent that is one of our top fragrances!
In short, by spreading the right scent, you can not only whet your guests' appetite, but also take their overall experience to the next level. It is a powerful tool that will entice your guests to come back again and again. And oh yes, it will make the staff happy too!