Hotel mementos
are hot sellers

Like that curved shower rod in your hotel bathroom? The embroidered pillow on the bed? The martini glasses you saw down at the bar?

The latest vacation souvenirs may be as close as a hotel Web site, because these days just about everything in the room can be bought.

Designers call it "hotel-at-home" decorating, pioneered five years ago by Westin Hotels & Resorts' heavily marketed "Heavenly Bed," which was supposed to bring a little bit of luxury to travelers who wanted nothing more than a good night's rest.

But the trend has become about more than selling people the bed they just slept in.

It's about selling the feeling of bringing the vacation home.

"When we did the Aston Waikiki Beach Hotel, we used a beaded curtain with a traditional Hawaiian hula dancer on it as the closet partition, and guests loved it," said Holly Boling-Ruiz, associate senior designer at Philpotts & Associates, a Honolulu design firm whose clients include hotels.

Vacationers at Hawaii resorts want to know where they can get poolside everything from chairs to coconut shell dishes.

"In the old days, hotels put up signs that said, 'If you really like this robe, it's for sale in the gift shop,"' said Robert Mandelbaum, who researches hotel industry trends for PKF Consul- ting in Atlanta. "Anymore, it's not just robes. Hotels are becoming more residential in feel, and guests can afford to pay a premium to bring that concept of comfort home."

Take, for example, the Heavenly Bed, a cushy, 12 1/2-inch pillow-top mattress that the Westin, owned by Starwood Hotels & Resorts, sells fully loaded for more than $3,000.

It has become such a craze that more than 6,000 consumers have plunked down the bucks for feather-filled comfort.

And hotel designers say consumers are asking for more.

Guests don't just ask for bathrobes and shampoo bottles, said Ariane Steinbeck, senior vice president of The Gettys Group, a Chicago-based firm that specializes in hotel design. They want area rugs, flooring and accessories.

At The Ritz-Carlton in Kapalua, Maui, guests have been known to spend thousands on bronze sculptures and tropical landscapes like those in the hotel, spokeswoman Shelby Taylor said.

And at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, anything pink is popular, including the ceramic candle holders that decorate tables at the beachside Mai Tai Bar.

At the Kahala Mandarin Oriental, which features rooms with four-poster canopy beds, guests rave about the coconut bath salts on the bathroom counters.

Travelers notice the details, from hand-held sandalwood fans to the 300-thread count Egyptian combed cotton duvet covers -- all for sale, Kahala Mandarin spokeswoman Marie Cazaux said.

She even e-mailed one guest pictures of the hotel restaurant's bamboo floor because the woman wanted the same floor designed for her own home.

At the Halekulani, the hotel's turndown service leaves trinkets such as chocolates and shells. Room amenities include the hotel's own line of bath products and even sunscreen.

Guests are free to inquire about how to order anything, including retro glass lamps and a lavender sofa just like those in the new Vera Wang suite, a designer that goes for about $4,000 a night, spokeswoman Joyce Matsumoto said.

But more often, she said, guests ask where to find fixtures such as those in the bathroom showers, where the water temperature automatically turns on at 105 degrees.

"Anything that creates creature comfort, that's what people want to take home," said Robin Ware, co-owner of the Hotels at Home, a New Jersey company that works with hotel chains such as Starwood and Wyndham to make their designer items available to the average Joe through catalogs and Web sites.

"The bestseller is always the pillows," she said, "because it's an affordable thing for everyone."+