“Give the gift of time.” It’s a sales pitch for a watch, right?
Not always.
Sometimes the gift of time is actual time – quiet time, getaway time, in a special place, with a friend or loved one.
People are giving holiday and Christmas gifts that don’t come in a box – or at least no container bigger than a slim envelope. Gift cards or certificates for experiential gifts are the choice of many people who have reached a point in life where they have enough stuff.
These experiences range from the thrilling, such as parachuting out of a plane with Skydive Newport LLC, to the entertaining, such as a Boston Red Sox ticket package that includes car service and a VIP tour, to the relaxing, such as an overnight stay at the historic Rose Island Lighthouse, just south of the Pell Bridge.
A nice fringe benefit on this form of gift-giving is that the giver might be included in the payoff, as in spouses giving each other a hotel stay or siblings sharing in a spa day.
Jennifer Dahler, director of marketing for the Providence Marriott Downtown, sees plenty of gift buyers choosing a spa day or hotel stay at the Marriott for a date later in the year.
“Grown-up siblings are giving a spa day to their brothers or sisters,” Dahler said. “They are saying, ‘This is our Christmas gift to each other.’ ”
In fact, in the 2019 holiday season the Marriott promoted a “super cyber hotel package,” Dahler said, consisting of one overnight for two and two 30-minute massages, at a steep discount.
The “Happy Spaladays” promotion had to be purchased between Black Friday and Cyber Monday – the four-day span immediately following Thanksgiving – in the hotel’s bid to piggyback on that heavy gift-buying weekend. The Marriott tried the Friday-to-Monday promotion in December 2018 and saw such a big response that it ran the promotion again in 2019.
In a survey conducted by The NPD Group, nearly 40% of holiday shoppers in 2017 said they planned to purchase experiential gifts, with the percentages highest among millennials and Gen Zers. Dining out, event tickets and spa certificates topped the list of planned “intangible” gifts.
The spa director at the Viking Hotel in Newport, Monique Michaud, said people are turning more to buying a gift of “quality time together.”
“In our society now, it is harder for people to spend time together,” Michaud said. In an interview in late November, Michaud said several people had just called her, looking for gift cards or certificates to give loved ones for Christmas.
“It is a very big holiday gift,” she said. “It’s becoming more and more popular.” Treatments such as massages are conducted privately, but people using the gift as a group will then hang out in the pool or Jacuzzi, sometimes with a glass of Viking Champagne in hand.
Susan Benzuly, owner of Evolve Apothecary and Spa in Providence, also sells spa time to customers giving the treatments as gifts. It’s become a key part of her business during the holidays.
“People are trying to create time for women to take care of themselves,” Benzuly said. “Self-care is not a luxury; it is a necessity.”
