While certainly a bit of a gimmick, you’ve gotta give Holiday Inn Express credit for its creativity…
Holiday Inn Express introduces breakfast alarm clock
Holiday Inn Express is a brand known for offering all guests free breakfast. Brands that offer free breakfast often try to heavily market that as a feature, for obvious reasons. Along those lines, Holiday Inn Express has just launched its latest initiative, which is kind of hilarious.
Holiday Inn Express has unveiled a world-first hotel experience, intended to transform mornings. Select Holiday Inn Express properties will be getting scent-based breakfast alarm clocks. So rather than an in-room alarm clock that wakes you up with loud beeps, these alarm clocks will instead wake you up with your preferred aroma, gently roused each morning by a diffuser-style scent alarm.
Guests will be able to choose their preferred breakfast scent for their alarm clock. Coffee, bacon, and blueberry muffin will be the scents in Australia and New Zealand, pear will be available in Japan, and mango will be available in Singapore and Thailand.
These new breakfast alarm clocks will be available as of October 20, 2025, and for a limited time. They’ll be available at all properties in Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, and at select properties in Thailand and Singapore.
Here’s how Dean Jones, IHG’s VP of Commercial for East Asia & Pacific, describes this:
“We know from the research that travellers across Asia Pacific are struggling with sleep, and many skip breakfast when they travel – sometimes to save money. We’ve intentionally designed the Holiday Inn Express experience with the best of both worlds: everything needed for a proper night’s sleep, plus a free hot breakfast. We want guests to maximise their stay with us, whether it’s for work or leisure, or both – and the research has been a great way to direct our attention to do more of what matters most.”
“Holiday Inn Express is about offering guests more of what matters, so we wanted to take this to new heights with something that we know guests will never forget. Waking up and maintaining a routine while travelling can be harder than it sounds, which is something the research underscored for us. But we also know the power of scent: that first whiff of coffee or fresh croissant can work wonders – especially when it’s free.”
Kudos to Holiday Inn Express for the creativity
Credit to Holiday Inn Express, as this is a brilliant, creative marketing campaign, which is sure to generate some interest. And it of course smartly ties in to the brand offering free breakfast, as highlighting that is the goal. That being said, I find this to be amusing on a couple of levels.
First of all, it’s funny to see a new type of alarm clock introduced, since for many of us, alarm clocks are kind of outdated concepts for hotels (do any OMAAT readers still use hotel alarm clocks?). When I arrive in a hotel room, one of the first things I always do is to check the alarm clock, since they so frequently go off accidentally, having been programmed by a previous guest.
Of course we all have our own preferences, but I can’t help but chuckle at this concept, because there’s little that sounds worse to me than waking up to the smell of bacon. And not just regular bacon, but a diffuser version of bacon. Ew, ew, ew, ew. I realize this is probably a hot take, given the popularity of bacon, but hey, it’s my truth.
For that matter, as someone who loves coffee, I wouldn’t even want to wake up to the smell of coffee in this way. I appreciate the smell of coffee when I wake up because I know that smell means that coffee is brewing, and I can have my first cup soon. But smelling coffee without actually getting to have coffee (other than putting on clothes and going to breakfast) would just make me sort of sad.
Again, it’s all a brilliant concept, and I think this will generate a lot of interest, but it’s probably just not for me…
Bottom line
Holiday Inn Express is rolling out some innovative breakfast alarm clocks in select regions, whereby guests can be woken up with the aroma of bacon or coffee, rather than waking up to the sound of a loud alarm. I’ll certainly give Holiday Inn Express credit for thinking outside the box, though I think I’ll still be using my phone as my alarm.
What do you make of these breakfast alarm clocks?