★ SOSA commercial scenting
The moment a student steps out of the traffic and into your studio - and their shoulders drop before they've reached the mat
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
★★★★★
"The Vaayu runs in reception from 5:30am and stops when the first class starts. Students walk in off the road and you can watch them exhale. Nobody has ever complained about scent in the hall, because there isn't any."
SOSA Vaayu · reception
★★★★★
"Three shalas, one scent. New students who try our second location say it feels like the same studio before they've noticed why. That was the whole point of doing it properly."
SOSA Vaayu · multi-studio
★★★★★
"We scent the corridor and changing rooms only. The hot room stays completely clean - we learned that the hard way with an old plug-in. Now the transition does the work and the practice is untouched."
Boond · changing rooms
★★★★★
"Our meditation room used to smell of the cafe downstairs. One Sukoon in the lobby and a proper air-out routine fixed it. Retention on the 6am slot is the best it's been."
Sukoon · lobby
★★★★★
"The Aangan went into the ducting at our wellness centre. Reception, corridors, treatment rooms - one signature, and the practice halls are on their own zone so they stay neutral."
SOSA Aangan · HVAC
★★★★★
"Students started mentioning the smell in Google reviews within a month. We had never had a review mention anything sensory before, in four years."
SOSA Vaayu · lobby
★★★★★
"The Vaayu runs in reception from 5:30am and stops when the first class starts. Students walk in off the road and you can watch them exhale. Nobody has ever complained about scent in the hall, because there isn't any."
SOSA Vaayu · reception
★★★★★
"Three shalas, one scent. New students who try our second location say it feels like the same studio before they've noticed why. That was the whole point of doing it properly."
SOSA Vaayu · multi-studio
★★★★★
"We scent the corridor and changing rooms only. The hot room stays completely clean - we learned that the hard way with an old plug-in. Now the transition does the work and the practice is untouched."
Boond · changing rooms
★★★★★
"Our meditation room used to smell of the cafe downstairs. One Sukoon in the lobby and a proper air-out routine fixed it. Retention on the 6am slot is the best it's been."
Sukoon · lobby
★★★★★
"The Aangan went into the ducting at our wellness centre. Reception, corridors, treatment rooms - one signature, and the practice halls are on their own zone so they stay neutral."
SOSA Aangan · HVAC
★★★★★
"Students started mentioning the smell in Google reviews within a month. We had never had a review mention anything sensory before, in four years."
SOSA Vaayu · lobby
✓ Waterless cold-air nebulising - no added humidity, app + timer scheduling ✓ Schedule it around class times - on before doors, off at the first Om ✓ HVAC systems for 8,000-18,000 sq ft wellness centres
Founder Diaries · Commercial Scent Marketing
Where does the scent go? Front of house only. Reception and the corridor carry it at full strength, the changing rooms carry a trace, and the practice hall carries nothing. A room full of people doing pranayama is the single worst place in commercial scenting to put a fragrance - and the mistake studios most often make.
Which fragrance? Cast it by what the practice asks of the body: clean green-citrus and cedar for vinyasa and power, sandalwood and vetiver for hatha, yin and restorative, near-neutral white tea for meditation and breathwork. Audition two candidates at ₹299 each, a fortnight apiece, and ask your 6am regulars directly.
Sukoon · reception₹1,799 Nobody sells a yoga class. What a studio actually sells is a reliable exit from the rest of the day, and the exit has a threshold - the door, the shoe rack, the desk, the corridor. A student crosses it still holding the commute, and everything you have built into the space is a signal telling them it is safe to set that down: the low light, the quiet, the absence of a television. Scent is the fastest of those signals, because the olfactory system reaches the limbic brain without passing through the deliberative machinery that reads your signage and decides whether to believe it. It lands before the student has finished arriving. This is the whole of the case for studio scenting, and it is entirely a case about the threshold. Nothing in it argues for putting fragrance where people practise.
Vaayu · scheduled₹11,999 Everywhere else in commercial scenting, a room full of people is an opportunity. In a practice hall it is the opposite, because the people are breathing on purpose - slowly, deeply, through the nose, at instructed volumes, for an hour. Ambient fragrance is designed to sit below conscious notice at a normal breathing rate. Put that same fragrance in front of thirty people doing ujjayi and it stops being ambient: it is inhaled deliberately, at depth, repeatedly, by someone whose entire attention is on the sensation of the breath. The thing you built to be unnoticeable becomes the loudest object in the room. Then there is the practical point: a teacher cannot adjust it mid-class, a student who reacts badly is on a mat in the middle of a row, and the complaint arrives as a review rather than a conversation. The professional position is the restrained one - the scent stops at the door of the hall, and the hall's job is clean, moving, well-ventilated air.
Hotel CollectionFrom ₹299 Yoga is a habit business. The value of a member is not one class, it is two hundred, and habits attach to consistency far more than to quality - which is why the scent's real return shows up in the second year, not the first month. A student who has arrived to the same air two hundred times has an association that no competitor's opening offer can dislodge cheaply, and a studio group with three locations that all smell identical has a portable membership rather than three separate ones. The reverse is also true, and it is why this has to be a system. A studio where the scent is strong on Tuesday, absent on Wednesday and different in March has taught its members nothing at all - the same reason a scheduled machine beats a staff member with a spray bottle every single time.
SOSA Vaayu · Reception₹11,999See details → 
Sukoon 500ml · Small studios₹1,799See details → 
Boond 300ml · Changing rooms₹799See details →
Facts verified August 2026: Ambient scent research consistently associates pleasant, congruent scenting with longer dwell time, improved venue evaluations and stronger brand recall at moderate effect sizes; congruence and gentle intensity outperform strong scenting in replicated studies, and no scent effect survives unclean or poorly ventilated premises. Olfactory memory is unusually durable, which is the mechanism behind hotel and studio signature scents. Fragrance volatility rises with temperature, which is the basis of this guide's hot-yoga recommendation. SOSA systems: Boond 300ml (₹799) and Sukoon 500ml (₹1,799) ultrasonic units run the water-based Hotel Collection fragrance (from ₹299; refills 100ml ₹999); SOSA Vaayu (₹11,999) is a waterless cold-air nebulising machine, up to 1000m³, 400ml tank, Bluetooth app and 1/4/8/24h timers, under 38 dB; SOSA Aangan (₹25,999) is an HVAC nebulising system covering up to 3,000m³ (roughly 8,000-10,000 sq ft). The Hotel Collection scents are SOSA's own interpretations; SOSA is independent and not affiliated with any hotel brand. Prices and availability are subject to change - see the live product pages.
A yoga studio is the only commercial space I work on where the customer's whole purpose is to breathe deliberately - which makes it the one place a fragrance can do the most good and the most harm, depending entirely on where you put it. The rule is simple: the threshold carries the scent, and the practice room yields to the breath. This is the complete guide to getting that line in the right place.
Quick answers — read this first
What is yoga studio scent marketing? Running one signature fragrance, on a schedule, through the arrival zones of your studio - reception, corridor, shoe rack, changing rooms - so that every student meets the same air the moment they leave the street behind. It is a threshold tool, not a room tool. Systems from ₹1,799; the studio standard is the SOSA Vaayu at ₹11,999 because it schedules itself around your class timetable.Where does the scent go? Front of house only. Reception and the corridor carry it at full strength, the changing rooms carry a trace, and the practice hall carries nothing. A room full of people doing pranayama is the single worst place in commercial scenting to put a fragrance - and the mistake studios most often make.
Which fragrance? Cast it by what the practice asks of the body: clean green-citrus and cedar for vinyasa and power, sandalwood and vetiver for hatha, yin and restorative, near-neutral white tea for meditation and breathwork. Audition two candidates at ₹299 each, a fortnight apiece, and ask your 6am regulars directly.
The short answer
Short answer: scent the transition, not the practice. One signature through reception, corridor and changing rooms, scheduled on before doors open and off at the start of class - grounding woods for slow styles, clean green for fast ones, near-nothing for breathwork. Nothing in the hall, ever, and nothing at all in a hot room.
The pick: the SOSA Vaayu (₹11,999) for studios - waterless, so it adds no humidity, with app scheduling that maps to your timetable. Small studios from ₹1,799; ducted wellness centres from ₹25,999.
Shop: the SOSA commercial scenting range and Hotel Collection blends.
In this guide
The studio standard
SOSA Vaayu · ₹11,999
Reception & changing rooms
Ultrasonic systems from ₹1,799
Whole wellness centres
HVAC systems from ₹25,999
Straight answer
How should a yoga studio use fragrance?
1. Scent the arrival, not the practice. A student walks in carrying a commute - horns, exhaust, an argument on the phone. The forty seconds between the door and the mat is when they put that down, and it is the only stretch of your studio where a fragrance is unambiguously working for you. Reception, the shoe rack, the corridor: full signature. The hall: nothing.
2. Schedule it against your timetable, not the clock. The system runs from thirty minutes before doors open until the first class begins, then again in the gap between classes, then off. A Vaayu (₹11,999) does this from the app and never depends on whoever is at the desk that morning.
3. Cast the scent to the practice. Green-citrus and cedar for vinyasa and power studios; sandalwood and vetiver for hatha, yin and restorative; white tea at near-neutral for meditation and breathwork rooms. Two candidates from the Hotel Collection at ₹299 each, a fortnight apiece.
4. Go waterless. Studios in Mumbai, Chennai and Kochi do not need a machine adding moisture to the air, and a hot room's corridor least of all. Cold-air nebulising puts scent in the air without humidity, which is why it is the format hotels and studios both settle on.
5. Keep one honest exit. Post the fragrance on your booking page, keep an unscented class on the schedule, and air the front of house fully once a day. A studio that handles fragrance sensitivity well earns more trust than the scent itself ever buys.
Made in India; a portion of every order supports girl-child education through Nanhi Kali.
2. Schedule it against your timetable, not the clock. The system runs from thirty minutes before doors open until the first class begins, then again in the gap between classes, then off. A Vaayu (₹11,999) does this from the app and never depends on whoever is at the desk that morning.
3. Cast the scent to the practice. Green-citrus and cedar for vinyasa and power studios; sandalwood and vetiver for hatha, yin and restorative; white tea at near-neutral for meditation and breathwork rooms. Two candidates from the Hotel Collection at ₹299 each, a fortnight apiece.
4. Go waterless. Studios in Mumbai, Chennai and Kochi do not need a machine adding moisture to the air, and a hot room's corridor least of all. Cold-air nebulising puts scent in the air without humidity, which is why it is the format hotels and studios both settle on.
5. Keep one honest exit. Post the fragrance on your booking page, keep an unscented class on the schedule, and air the front of house fully once a day. A studio that handles fragrance sensitivity well earns more trust than the scent itself ever buys.
Made in India; a portion of every order supports girl-child education through Nanhi Kali.
One line: signature scent through reception and corridors, scheduled off during class, nothing in the hall and nothing in a hot room - Vaayu ₹11,999, or Sukoon ₹1,799 for a single studio, auditioned at ₹299.
Why the threshold, and not the hall
1
The transition
Your studio's real product starts at the door
Sukoon · reception₹1,799 Nobody sells a yoga class. What a studio actually sells is a reliable exit from the rest of the day, and the exit has a threshold - the door, the shoe rack, the desk, the corridor. A student crosses it still holding the commute, and everything you have built into the space is a signal telling them it is safe to set that down: the low light, the quiet, the absence of a television. Scent is the fastest of those signals, because the olfactory system reaches the limbic brain without passing through the deliberative machinery that reads your signage and decides whether to believe it. It lands before the student has finished arriving. This is the whole of the case for studio scenting, and it is entirely a case about the threshold. Nothing in it argues for putting fragrance where people practise.
Tip: the forty seconds between the door and the mat is the highest-value stretch of air you own - and the only stretch worth scenting.
2
The breath's right of way
Why the practice hall gets nothing
Vaayu · scheduled₹11,999 Everywhere else in commercial scenting, a room full of people is an opportunity. In a practice hall it is the opposite, because the people are breathing on purpose - slowly, deeply, through the nose, at instructed volumes, for an hour. Ambient fragrance is designed to sit below conscious notice at a normal breathing rate. Put that same fragrance in front of thirty people doing ujjayi and it stops being ambient: it is inhaled deliberately, at depth, repeatedly, by someone whose entire attention is on the sensation of the breath. The thing you built to be unnoticeable becomes the loudest object in the room. Then there is the practical point: a teacher cannot adjust it mid-class, a student who reacts badly is on a mat in the middle of a row, and the complaint arrives as a review rather than a conversation. The professional position is the restrained one - the scent stops at the door of the hall, and the hall's job is clean, moving, well-ventilated air.
Tip: if your schedule can't turn the system off before class starts, you have bought the wrong machine.
3
The consistency dividend
One scent, every branch, every morning
Hotel CollectionFrom ₹299 Yoga is a habit business. The value of a member is not one class, it is two hundred, and habits attach to consistency far more than to quality - which is why the scent's real return shows up in the second year, not the first month. A student who has arrived to the same air two hundred times has an association that no competitor's opening offer can dislodge cheaply, and a studio group with three locations that all smell identical has a portable membership rather than three separate ones. The reverse is also true, and it is why this has to be a system. A studio where the scent is strong on Tuesday, absent on Wednesday and different in March has taught its members nothing at all - the same reason a scheduled machine beats a staff member with a spray bottle every single time.
The guide's hero system SOSA Vaayu · Waterless Cold-Air Machine ₹11,999 Up to 1000m³ from one unit, Bluetooth app with 1/4/8/24h run windows, under 38 dB, and no water - so nothing is adding humidity to a studio corridor in monsoon. Freestanding or wall-mounted. View this system →
The studio zone map
Every studio is the same five zones in a different order. Scent belongs in the first three.
The zone map
Where the scent goes, and where it stops
| Zone | Level | System |
|---|---|---|
| Reception & shoe rack | Full signature - this is the arrival | Vaayu ₹11,999 / Sukoon ₹1,799 |
| Corridor to the hall | Full, carried from reception | Same unit, placed to use the airflow |
| Changing rooms & washrooms | Trace - and here it earns its keep | Boond ₹799 each |
| Practice hall | Nothing. Ventilation instead | No system - air it between classes |
| Hot room | Nothing, and this one is not negotiable | Extraction, not fragrance |
| Retail corner / cafe | Full - it is front of house | Boond ₹799 |
Shop this guide
The three systems a studio actually needs
SOSA Vaayu · Reception₹11,999See details → Sukoon 500ml · Small studios₹1,799See details → Boond 300ml · Changing rooms₹799See details →
The SOSA principle
The yoga register is a threshold scent with a silent centre: composed at the door, traced through the changing rooms, and absent from the moment the breath becomes the work.
Studios that get this wrong put a diffuser in the hall and wonder why the reviews mention it. Studios that get it right are remembered for an atmosphere their students can't name.
Scent casts by practice style
Cast the fragrance by what the practice is asking the body to do, not by what the brochure says the studio is. A fast studio wants lift; a slow studio wants ground; a breathwork room wants almost nothing at all.
The SOSA scent edit
The yoga studio casts
| Studio style | The cast, and why |
|---|---|
| Vinyasa, power, ashtanga · ₹299 | Green tea, citrus and cedar - lifting and awake, with no sweetness to sit heavy in a warm room. |
| Hatha, yin, restorative · ₹299 | Sandalwood and vetiver - grounding, slow, familiar to Indian noses without tipping into incense. |
| Meditation & breathwork · ₹299 | White tea at the faintest usable level. The register here is nearly nothing, deliberately. |
| Prenatal & kids' classes | Air the space and run unscented. Sensitivity is higher and the upside is not worth it. |
| Hot yoga · the exception | Scent the transition zones only. Heat amplifies fragrance sharply - see below. |
| The calibration · free | Fullest at the door, trace in the changing rooms, silent in the hall. Placement beats product. |
Audition two, keep one Hotel Collection Fragrance From ₹299 SOSA's own interpretations of the world's finest hotel scents - white tea, bergamot and cedar through to amber and vetiver. Cheap enough to audition two candidates for a fortnight each before you commit your studio to one for years. View the collection →
The hot yoga exception
Hot yoga is the one format where I tell studio owners to spend nothing on fragrance for the room itself, and I want to be specific about why, because it is not squeamishness.
A hot room runs at 35-40°C with elevated humidity. Heat drives volatility: the same fragrance that reads as a whisper at 24°C in a lobby projects several times harder at 40°C, and the ceiling on what feels pleasant drops at exactly the moment the delivery gets stronger. Add thirty people breathing hard, add ninety minutes, add students who are already managing heat stress, and a scent that seemed perfectly judged during your afternoon test becomes something people leave the room over. There is no intensity setting that solves this reliably, which is why the professional answer is not to try.
What works instead is contrast. Scent the changing rooms, the corridor and the recovery or cool-down area properly, and let the hot room be clean, hard-ventilated air. A student walks through your signature on the way in, practises in air that asks nothing of them, and walks back out through it. The transition is doing the branding work, and the room is doing the practice work. Put the budget you would have spent on scenting the hot room into its extraction and its between-class air-out - it will show up in your reviews faster than any fragrance would.
The students who can't have fragrance
Some of your members have asthma, migraine triggers or genuine fragrance sensitivity, and a wellness business that ignores this is undermining the thing it sells. This is not a reason to skip scenting - it is a reason to do it in a way you can stand behind.
Four things cover it. Say so publicly: one line on your booking page and your studio induction that the front of house is lightly scented, which turns a surprise into an informed choice. Keep the halls clean: if the practice rooms are genuinely unscented, a sensitive student can still take every class you run. Air the front of house daily, so the scent is a layer on fresh air rather than a substitute for it. And take the first complaint seriously - one student saying the reception is too strong means the level is too strong, not that the student is unusual. Dial it down; the level that works is always lower than the level you first set.
The scent's job ends where the breath's begins - and the studios students stay with for years are the ones that know exactly where that line is.
— Sonal Sahani, SOSA
The SOSA commercial edit
Whichever business you run, the system logic is the same: one signature, sized to the space, scheduled so it never depends on a staff member's memory. The Hotel Collection blends - SOSA's own interpretations of the world's finest hotel scents - run across the range, and everything is supported from Pune. A portion of every order supports girl-child education through Nanhi Kali.
The SOSA commercial edit
Size the system to the space - single studios to multi-hall wellness centres
| System | Best for | Why it works | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boond (300ml) | Changing rooms, washrooms, retail corners | Small ultrasonic unit for the zones that need a trace, not a signature | ₹799 |
| Sukoon (500ml) + Hotel Collection | Single-hall studio receptions | The entry system - enough for a compact front of house, water-based | ₹1,799 + ₹299 |
| SOSA Vaayu ★ | Studio receptions, corridors & lobbies to ~1000m³ | Waterless cold-air nebulising, Bluetooth app + 1/4/8/24h timers, under 38 dB - the scheduling is what makes it right for a class timetable | ₹11,999 |
| SOSA Aangan | Wellness centres 8,000-10,000 sq ft | HVAC nebulising - one signature through the front-of-house zones, hidden in the plant room | ₹25,999 |
| Hotel Collection refills | Every system's running cost | 100ml / 300ml - SOSA's interpretations of the world's finest hotel scents | from ₹999 |
Honest notes for studio owners: ambient scenting's effects on dwell time, perceived quality and recall are real but moderate - they compound a well-run studio and rescue nothing; premises must be clean and ventilated first, because fragrance crowns good air and never substitutes for it. Ultrasonic systems (Boond, Sukoon) add a small amount of humidity and run the water-based Hotel Collection fragrance; the Vaayu and the HVAC systems run waterless nebulising oil - the two formats are not interchangeable. In humid coastal cities, prefer waterless for anything running several hours a day. The Hotel Collection scents are SOSA's own interpretations inspired by the world's finest hotels; SOSA is an independent Indian fragrance house, not affiliated with or endorsed by any hotel brand. A portion of every order supports girl-child education through Nanhi Kali.
For multi-hall wellness centres SOSA Aangan · HVAC Nebulising Diffuser ₹25,999 Sits beside your air-handling unit and carries one signature through every zone the ducting serves - up to 3,000m³. For a centre with reception, corridors, treatment rooms and retail, it means one refill point instead of eight, and no visible machines anywhere. View this system →
SS
ISIPCA
Versailles
Versailles
A note from Sonal
The first yoga studio I worked with wanted the scent in the shala. I said no, and I nearly lost the project over it. Six months later the owner told me the reception scent had ended up in four of her Google reviews and not one student had ever mentioned the hall - which is exactly what winning looks like in a space built for breathing.
I trained at ISIPCA in Versailles, where the world's scent-marketing perfumers learn the craft, and the discipline I came away with was mostly about restraint. The architecture is the same everywhere: one signature, sized to the space, run on a schedule - so the scent is as reliable as the timetable on your wall. What changes between a hotel lobby and a yoga studio is where you are allowed to put it. In a studio, the answer is the threshold.
Everything is supported from Pune, and a part of every order funds girl-child education through Nanhi Kali. Your studio gets a memory; a girl gets a classroom. That equation has always felt right to me.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best fragrance for a yoga studio?
Cast it by what the practice asks the body to do: clean green and citrus-cedar for vinyasa and power studios (lifting, awake, no weight), sandalwood and vetiver for hatha, yin and restorative (grounding, slow, warm), and near-neutral white tea for meditation and breathwork rooms where anything more is too much. Hotel Collection candidates at ₹299, auditioned a fortnight each with your regulars asked directly. But the cast matters less than the placement: the scent belongs at the threshold, and the practice hall stays clean.
Should you diffuse fragrance during a yoga class?
No. Yoga is breathwork, and a practising room is full of people breathing deliberately, deeply and through the nose - the one situation where an ambient scent stops being ambient. Run the system before class so students meet it on arrival, and schedule it off at the start of practice. The scent does its job at the door; the breath owns the room. This is also the single most common mistake studios make, and the one students complain about.
Where should a yoga studio put its diffuser?
At the transition, not in the hall. The arrival sequence - door, reception desk, shoe rack, corridor - is where a student is still carrying the street with them, and it is where a scent does real work. Place a Sukoon (₹1,799) or a Vaayu (₹11,999) in reception, a Boond (₹799) in the changing rooms, and nothing in the practice hall. In a large centre with ducted air conditioning, an Aangan (₹25,999) can carry one signature through the front-of-house zones while the halls stay on their own untreated zone.
Can you scent a hot yoga room?
You should not. A hot room runs at 35-40°C with high humidity and a room full of people breathing hard, and heat amplifies fragrance sharply - a level that reads as pleasant in a cool lobby becomes overwhelming in a hot room, and it can genuinely make students feel unwell. Scent the changing rooms, the corridor and the recovery area instead, and put your money into the hot room's ventilation and its between-class air-out. The contrast does the work: a scented transition, then clean air for the practice.
What does it cost to fragrance a yoga studio?
A single-hall studio runs a Sukoon (₹1,799) in reception, a Boond (₹799) in the changing room, a Hotel Collection scent (₹299) and refills (from ₹999) - under ₹4,000 installed and a few hundred rupees a month to run, or roughly one drop-in class. A larger studio steps up to the Vaayu at ₹11,999 for proper front-of-house coverage with app scheduling, and a ducted wellness centre to the Aangan at ₹25,999. Against a monthly membership base, the payback maths is not close.
The arrival, engineered
SOSA — commercial scent marketing for the studio students never quite leave
The threshold your members cross two hundred times a year: from ₹299. Made in India; a portion of every order supports girl-child education through Nanhi Kali.
See the SOSA Vaayu → All commercial systems
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More from SOSA
Editorial standards & sources
About this guide: Written by Sonal Sahani, ISIPCA Versailles-trained founder and perfumer at SOSA Home & Body. Product recommendations reflect the SOSA commercial range; the scent-marketing strategy advice applies to any brand's systems.Facts verified August 2026: Ambient scent research consistently associates pleasant, congruent scenting with longer dwell time, improved venue evaluations and stronger brand recall at moderate effect sizes; congruence and gentle intensity outperform strong scenting in replicated studies, and no scent effect survives unclean or poorly ventilated premises. Olfactory memory is unusually durable, which is the mechanism behind hotel and studio signature scents. Fragrance volatility rises with temperature, which is the basis of this guide's hot-yoga recommendation. SOSA systems: Boond 300ml (₹799) and Sukoon 500ml (₹1,799) ultrasonic units run the water-based Hotel Collection fragrance (from ₹299; refills 100ml ₹999); SOSA Vaayu (₹11,999) is a waterless cold-air nebulising machine, up to 1000m³, 400ml tank, Bluetooth app and 1/4/8/24h timers, under 38 dB; SOSA Aangan (₹25,999) is an HVAC nebulising system covering up to 3,000m³ (roughly 8,000-10,000 sq ft). The Hotel Collection scents are SOSA's own interpretations; SOSA is independent and not affiliated with any hotel brand. Prices and availability are subject to change - see the live product pages.