Selfie Sticks Are the Latest Amenity at Instagram-Friendly Hotels

More hotels are beginning to offer selfie sticks to guests like they’re umbrellas.

The next hottest thing may fizzle out just as quickly as it sizzled, but hotels are still making moves to add it to their hospitality arsenal. Their commitment to the extendable fad varies in distribution, some provide them to all guests at all properties, some just to VIPs, and some use it as part of discount packages, or a perk for hotel app downloads.

Since posting selfie snaps to Instagram is a big part of the selfie stick experience, Skift reached out to some of the most-followed hotel properties and brands on the image sharing service to learn how they used sticks:

Kimpton Hotels: All properties offer selfie sticks for rental. They are sweetening the deal by choosing one winner per month from the crowdsourced selfies with #AdoreThySelfie hashtag because the prize this social behavior highly. The prize pack includes a $150 Kimpton gift card, their very own stick, and a blown-up version of their winning selfie.

Four Seasons Houston: Guests and restaurant diners have access to complimentary selfie sticks to take snaps on-property and in Houston. “It is not a pilot program for all Four Seasons, it’s something our team came up with on their own, but we’ve seen a great response to it” said a spokesperson from Four Seasons in Houston.”

Fairmont Mayakoba, Riviera Maya: The hotel will offer it as a complimentary amenity on April 1, 2015. The selfie sticks will not be branded and they’re plan is to be part of a larger conversation about #selfie on social.

Mandarin Oriental Miami: In Spring 2015, they will package selfie sticks with a top Miami photographer who will teach guests how to use gadgets and technology and photo editing mobile apps. The two-night hotel package includes this hand-on session, a chauffeured tour of Miami’s most snap-worthy spots back to the hotel’s restaurant, La Mar to sharpen their food porn photo skills and tag it up with #MyMiami hashtag.

Hilton Hotels: Hilton Changzhou and Hilton Hongqiao Shanghai in China are two properties have selfie sticks available for VIP gifts, not to all hotel guests. Because you have to be really rich to take a photo of yourself in your suite, apparently.

W Hotels: Currently not all of their hotels offer it as permanent amenities, but W New York – Times Square is giving away selfie sticks for the first 15 guests who check in on the SPG Keyless app. A bit short-lived, but should a guest request one hotel staff will retrieve it as part of their service.

But just because a hotel provides a selfie stick, it doesn’t mean it’s welcome at attractions across town. A list of museums that have banned selfie sticks in the Unites States include: Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum, Museum of Modern Art, The Guggenheim, Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, indoor galleries at Getty Center and Getty Villa and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.