Travel Rebound Fuels World Amenities’ Growth – San Diego Business Journal

SAN DIEGO – There’s a science behind what travelers do when they walk into their hotel room, says Laura Atkinson.

“What’s the first thing most guests do?” Atkinson asks rhetorically. “Check to see what kind of lotion, shampoo and soap is in the room.”

Atkinson knows. She is National Sales Director for World Amenities, Inc., one of the San Diego Business Journal’s fastest growing private companies, with 28% year-over-year growth from 2022 to 2023 and honored as an Inc. 5000 in 2023 with 162% three-year growth.

World Amenities says that more than 1 billion people use one of its products every day and the company is working, Atkinson said, “to be part of every destination as the most sustainable company in the world.”

Co-founded in 2018 by Paul Hodge, a San Diego Business Journal CEO of the Year finalist, the company specializes in environmentally friendly, recyclable, and biodegradable skincare-based brands and amenities like cleaning products, mouthwash and makeup removal wipes.

The company continues to grow its footprint.

Last month, World Amenities announced that it began a strategic partnership with New York-based Group Purchasing Organizations Inhaven and Minoan, as part of the short-term rental and vacation rental market sectors. (GPOs leverage combined purchasing power to obtain maximum discounts from suppliers for all their members.)

Homeware retailer Inhaven is adding various sustainable toiletries from World Amenities as part of its furnishing, equipment and accessory offerings for rooms in homes. Minoan is adding World Amenities to its offerings to provide a range of eco-conscious guest room needs, including Kraft paper and Wheat straw zero biodegradable plastic packaging accessory items.

Both Inhaven and Minoan are “pillars in the STR and VRM hospitality industry, providing an array of essential products tailored for vacation rentals,” Hodge said. “Our partnership reinforces our commitment to sustainability and excellence in guest experiences.”

Growing Hospitality Market

Based in San Diego, World Amenities is true to its name, serving more than 70 international markets. The company offers about 250 stock lines and more than 500 custom brands that are distributed in more than 60,000 salons and 75,000 resort rooms a night.

Both a business-to-business brand and a direct-to-consumer company, World Amenities even sells spa slippers.

Its markets are some of the world’s leading hotels, salons and spas, as well as top medical and educational sites. The company has a global reach at hotels like Caesar’s Palace and all its subsidiaries, Marriott International in North America, some Hiltons and aboard cruise ships like the Royal Caribbean.

World Amenities also partners with mom-and-pop spots and independent lodging facilities, including local favorites the Catamaran Hotel and Torrey Pines Lodge.

“We’re in every single state in the United States of America,” said Hodge, a native of Australia who moved to Los Angeles in 2005 and later made his way down to San Diego.

Acting on Instinct

World Amenities started as a side gig for Hodge, who has an acting degree as well as a B.A. in International Business Marketing and Trade Law.

Hodge, an investor in Robanda International, Inc. – a global beauty, skincare and cosmetics supply business started by his wife’s father and based in San Diego – was doing some work for the company, taking trips with small bottles of shampoo to hotels in Palm Springs and Las Vegas to win over new customers.

He said at one point on his travels, his instinct helped him realize it was time a new company formed and separated in order to solely focus on the hospitality industry.

Atkinson calls World Amenities with its 17 employees “a little company casting a huge shadow.”

“Our biggest competitors have been manufacturing personal care guest room amenities for nearly 50 years,” she said, “so by comparison, World Amenities is ‘new’ in the industry. But this is true only in name… we have an experienced team, a proven process and a unified purpose. We have not gone unnoticed!”

Major Challenges

Starting with only 16 SKUs but growing comfortably in its first three years, by 2020 it had more than120 SKUs and adding more by the week.

But in March 2020, the pandemic came and changed everything in the world, particularly for hotels and the hospitality industry as a whole.

The American Hotel and Lodging Association’s State of the Hotel Industry 2021 report said that 670,000 hotel industry operation jobs and nearly 4 million hospitality jobs were lost in 2020 due to the pandemic, but it was companies like World Amenities that also were greatly affected.

“We were doing multiple millions by 2019 going into 2020,” Hodge said. “We were growing, we were profitable, but then, overnight (Covid) came and that just knocked the wind out of our sails. Our revenue was halved and we lost about a half million dollars. We were able to keep all our staff but it was rough.”

He said the company pivoted to hand sanitizer and other health-forward items to make ends meet, and said because of the pandemic, he was forced to scrutinize expenses, write a new business plan and refinance everything.

He said it was nearly a year later, in February 2021, that he started getting phone call after phone call with people in the hospitality industry looking for products to restock, and so World Amenities literally was back in business, reaching out to its vendors again.

“It’s all OEM and white label, all our brands are made by our factory partners, in multiple countries and domestically in the U.S.,” he said. “Somehow we pieced it all back together.”

Changes Ahead

Hodge said that as things started to open up, those in the hospitality industry told him, “’not only do we want to be hygienic, we also don’t want plastic anymore.’”

So Hodge said the company had to be even more cognizant and thoughtful about its environmental footprint. The company in 2021 began a deep dive into R&D related to plastic volume and consumption, figuring out what can and can’t be recycled, and how to best do that.

“Basically, the thinking was, ‘Look we’re starting again, so let’s do it let’s do it right,’ and it’s been that way ever since. We’re still doing it.”

Hodge said that this November at an international trade show in Paris, the company will launch an innovative way for dispensing products like soap, shampoo and body wash.

“It’s a product that I’ve been working on since November 2020, with different packaging that the hospitality world will have never seen, and they’ll embrace it.” Hodge said. “It’s incredibly unique. I won’t say what they are yet, but the patents are on them already and it’s in production.”

Even now as toiletries and personal care products continue to transition to dispensing modes and away from small bottles and individual packaging, a task in which World Amenities has become an industry leader, Atkinson said she advises hospitality staff to literally keep something on hand for the guest.

“We’re so accustomed to that having that little gift, opening that shampoo, that soap, it’s such a personal thing,” Atkinson said. “It’s the personal touch, a hotel giving something back. I’m always encouraging anybody changing to their dispensing to keep a lotion, keep a little bar of soap… something with the hotel name on it. Because you know people need to leave with a little something… otherwise they’re going to take the towels!”

World Amenities, Inc.
FOUNDED: 2015 (incorporated 2018)
CO-FOUNDER AND CEO: Paul Hodge
HEADQUARTERS: San Diego
BUSINESS: DTC and B2B skincare and amenities
EMPLOYEES: 17
WEBSITE: worldamenities.com
CONTACT: 858-880-SOAP
SOCIAL IMPACT: Company donates to several nonprofits, including The Water Project, PATH (People Assisting the Homeless) and Susan G. Komen.
NOTABLE: CEO Hodge is a trained actor with a B.A. in fine arts from the University of Queensland who has appeared in TV shows, including ER and NCIS.