It is not the first hotel business to provide rooms that smell, but it is the first to regard its odours as a selling point. Travelodge, the purveyor of generic accommodation overlooking some of Britain’s finest roundabouts, is to offer guests “scented” rooms.

The chain first carried out a survey to isolate the smells most likely to comfort anyone finding themselves in Travelodge Birmingham Fort Dunlop one evening after midnight.

The largest number of respondents wished to smell the sea. Just under a quarter wanted their room to reek of freshly cut grass.

One in five hoped for a whiff of baby powder; this was apparently the “ideal comforter for doting parents”, reminding them of their infant, even if a better reminder would have been a sleepless night.

Nine per cent of women surveyed wanted a bed that smelt of chocolate, despite the obvious danger that they might unconsciously attempt to devour their duvets.

Travelodge introduced versions of each of these scents yesterday. It is difficult to distinguish the sea from grass, and difficult to distinguish any of the scents from lavatory cleaner. It is possible that, given time to diffuse, beds will soon resemble Yarmouth at low tide, but it also seems likely that each smell will linger. Travellers may soon be smothered in a complicated mix that reminds them of nothing so much as a newly mown football pitch in the sea, with grace notes of chocolate and baby lotion.

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