Making hotel guests feel at home sounds like an easy task. Great customer service and guest relations might be the first step, but amenities are the icing on the cake. What better way to feel at home than to find your favorite brand displayed on a tray in the room? Many gift, gourmet and tabletop manufacturers are already found in a number of hotels, including L’Occitane, Crabtree & Evelyn, Fragonard, Mighty Leaf Tea, Rosenthal and Korres. But what you may not initially expect are pet-related amenities. Plenty of pet owners take their dogs on vacation with them. In fact, 79 percent who do take their pets with them stay at pet-friendly hotels and 63 percent would lengthen their stay if they had the opportunity to travel with their pets according to a May 2008 BringYourPet.com poll.
This is a major reason why ARFDog www.arfdog.com decided to exhibit at the International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant Show. The company, which offers a wide array of pet products and gifts sets, felt that providing guests’ pets with a few luxuries could be lucrative.
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Exhibiting for its second year, ARFDog finds that catering to the pet traveler is a natural extension for its business. “More and more hotels are becoming pet friendly and need amenities for their guests traveling with their dogs,” said Ricki Noto, founder of ARFDog. And it’s not just in-room amenities that guests are looking for; they are also looking for gifts to bring home with them according to Noto. “Many people who are traveling without their dogs want to bring a gift home for their dog or the dog sitter. From dog bowls to dog beds, we are able to provide any and all of the amenities needed for their four-legged guest,” he said. The company offers a variety of products, including five themed gift boxes: The Sleep-Over Suitcase, The Spa, New Puppy, Sporty and Beach. In addition, ARFDog recently added a line of collars and leashes which can be customized with the hotel’s logo.
With more and more people taking their pets along with them on a holiday, more and more hotels are looking for pet amenities. “From our experience [hotels] are actively looking for pet related amenities. If a hotel is pet friendly, then they need to accommodate their guests. Depending upon the hotel, what differs is how extravagant they want to go,” said Noto. ARFDog is currently in six hotels, including The Four Seasons in New York, The Andrew Hotel in Garden City, NY, The Gasparilla Inn & Club in Boca Grande, FL and Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City.
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