This campaign recreates hotel sounds to lure you back to travel

Swedish hotel chain Elite Hotels is hoping to lure visitors back to travel again after the pandemic with a campaign that focuses on an unexpected aspect of hotel stays—their sounds.

The work, by Stockholm and Hamburg-based agency Volt, includes a series of digital videos that take a microphone to some very specific hotel noises: meals being prepared in the hotel kitchen; luggage wheeled down a hallway; the sizzle of the sauna; the tinkle of room service arriving on a tray.

Fashion photographer and director Tobias Lundkvist directed the films working closely together with film industry technician Martin Mighetto, who recorded several layers with hypersensitive microphones and amplified them with spatial effects to capture the feeling of "stepping into the moment."

“The idea of using the sounds of Elite Hotels ironically came to us in a moment of silence, while working on this project in the hotel lobby,” said Christian Jörgensen and Johan Sundberg, creatives at Volt, in a joint statement. “While closing our eyes trying to figure out a way to really capture the spirit of the hotel it all suddenly came together. There's something very pleasurable and captivating with hotel sounds. They are powerful triggers that immediately activate our lust center.”

The campaign, which also includes a playlist on Spotify, is a bit reminiscent of other campaigns that have tried to capture auditory experiences people missed during the pandemic, including that of the New York Public Library, which recorded the "missing sounds" of New York. However, this one has a call to action—to book that trip now. And it's clearly working—according to the brand, the digital ads have already led directly to over 9000 hotel bookings.