It’s time to think more creatively about amenities for kids: Travel Weekly

Khrystyna Yelski

Coloring book. Adorable tiny robe with matching slippers. A soft bear with an embroidered hotel logo on the paw.

For decades, these types of offerings have represented the status quo when it comes to baby amenities. But a new London consultancy known as Wanderland is hoping to shake up the hospitality industry with innovative ideas for hoteliers still stuck in the coloring book era.

The brainchild of co-founders Saar Shai and Alicia Zur-Spiro, Wanderland bills itself as “the world’s first sommelier and atelier for kids, teens and hotels.” It’s a specialized focus that’s made even more unique by the fact that the Wanderland team is made up of self-proclaimed industry outsiders.

“We’re not from hospitality,” Shai said. “We come from what we call the ‘baby industries’, which are toys, game design, book publishing, media and entertainment, and education technology.”

Those fresh eyes feel like they’ve noticed a significant blind spot, especially when it comes to urban objects.

“We think there’s a certain short-sightedness, especially in urban hotels,” Shai said. “They don’t really push themselves to think creatively about what they can do for the kids.”

So what does creative thinking look like?

Coming this November, the inaugural Wanderland Kids Hospitality Report aims to answer that question by offering hotel insights drawn from best practices in various children’s industries.

One of Wanderland’s ideas involves integrating a physical, non-digital loyalty program for kids.

“Loyalty programs are such a marketing engine in this industry, and the fact that they don’t exist for kids is astounding,” Shai said.

Shai said he envisions a system that includes collectible tokens that kids can exchange for items for themselves or their parents on their first visit, or keep and use at another hotel on a subsequent visit. The inspiration, he added, is based on the popular board game Monopoly.

“One of the main reasons Monopoly is so successful is that you give kids the equivalent of currency,” Shai said. “So for a hotel group to give kids their first wallet and then these tokens is a huge opportunity.”

Shai said he’s not afraid to use technology for older kids and the notoriously difficult teenage demographic.

He mentioned Wanderland’s development of an app called Surround, which offers location-based audio, which Shy said is designed to combine teenagers’ love of audio content, such as music and podcasts, with a touch of travel. However, the surround sound is not intended to be “didactic”, as in ordinary audio tours.

“Kids, especially teenagers, really pick up on the fact that you’re trying to teach them and that you think you know them,” Shai said. “What we’re doing is assuming we know them.”

Video games are also part of the arsenal, although Shai suggests creating a more social gaming system that encourages the whole family to participate in the game. For hotels, it’s the difference between installing a console in a room with one or two controllers and spending a few extra minutes to install enough controllers for everyone.

Shy said Wanderland knew the vacation offered a unique opportunity to log off. “But we also recognize that when you completely ignore screens, you can alienate a child. We may not be able to get them off the screen entirely, but at least we can make that screen time quality for the whole family.”