The Brief

The property’s lobby had been designed with considerable care — quality materials, considered lighting, a coherent design language rooted in contemporary Southeast Asian aesthetics. However, the olfactory environment was neutral at best: clean but undistinguished, making no contribution to the brand impression the rest of the lobby was designed to create.

The hotel’s management team wanted a fragrance that felt consistent with the property’s visual and material identity — warm, sophisticated, with a subtle Southeast Asian character — and that would be diffused consistently across the lobby and lift lobby areas at all operating hours.

The Approach

Scent Swirl’s team conducted an on-site assessment of the lobby space — measuring the floor area, assessing the ceiling height and ventilation configuration, and evaluating the existing ambient odour environment at different times of day including peak check-in and check-out periods.

Based on the brand brief and space assessment, a shortlist of three fragrances was drawn from the library — all within the warm-woody and soft-floral families, each with a distinct character suited to the hotel’s positioning. The hotel team evaluated the shortlist in the space over a period of one week before making a final selection.

Two cold-air diffusion units were installed — one wall-mounted unit in the main lobby area and a second in the lift lobby — and calibrated to deliver consistent, low-intensity fragrance across both zones throughout the hotel’s operating hours, with a reduced diffusion schedule during early morning cleaning hours.

The Outcome

Within the first month, the hotel’s front desk team noted unsolicited positive comments from guests about the lobby atmosphere — typically attributing the improved impression to the space generally rather than specifically to the fragrance, which is the intended outcome of well-calibrated ambient scenting. The fragrance was not noticed as an addition; it was simply experienced as part of what made the lobby feel right.

At the six-month subscription review, the hotel extended coverage to include the pool deck corridor and the hotel restaurant entrance — two additional zones where the management team felt a fragrance presence would reinforce the brand experience across more guest touchpoints.

Subscription Details

• Plan: Professional
• Units installed: 2 wall-mounted cold-air diffusion units
• Coverage zones: Main lobby, lift lobby
• Fragrance family: Warm and woody with soft floral accent
• Supply cycle: Monthly