So-called ‘love rooms’ are attracting more and more French couples looking to escape the humdrum of daily domestic life and reward themselves with a soupçon of lost romance.
They are regular rooms and suites such as the ones usually found in hotels or holiday cottages, the main difference being that they are decorated to create a romantic and peaceful atmosphere.
Creating romantic and peaceful atmospheres
While the idea first appeared in the early 2000s, the concept really took off in the mid-2010s and skyrocketed during Covid when confinement periods became the norm.
Seven hundred such places are estimated to exist around the country, taking inspiration from a popular concept that emerged in Japan or Brazil.
The marketing behind ‘love rooms’ plays on France’s 50% divorce rate by offering an experience meant to pull couples out of their daily routine; a sure-fire romance killer.
Love'nSpa: cataloguing France's love rooms
“The promise we sell is to take couples away from their everyday life,” said Samuel Deleu, director of Love’nSpa, a website cataloguing most of France’s love rooms, and the owner of four bespoke love rooms himself. The term is basically a marketing trick encompassing what hotels and sites such as Booking have characterised as “room with a private jacuzzi”, said Mr Deleu.
Love’nSpa lists 600 of France and Belgium’s love rooms and reunites owners through blogs, articles, advice and questions about the activity, with Mr Deleu adding around 15 newcomers every month. [Love’nSpa is not to be confused with Love&Spa which is a love room in Avignon (Provence-Alpes-Côtes d’Azur)].
Occitanie, Hauts-de-France, Provence-Alpes-Côte- d’Azur and Nouvelle-Aquitaine are four regions with the most love room listings on the website, ranging from 53 (Occitanie) to 80 (Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur). Centre-Val de Loire has the lowest number at 23 while Normandy has 41.
Proof of the current buzz for this trend is the 8% growth Mr Deleu generates from his four locations, a steady increase ever since he joined the business after being a client himself. A one-night stay costs between €200 to €900.
This is also how couple Emanuelle and Rudy Brilland opened La Grange Epicurienne, a love room in La Ferrière-Bochard (Orne), last September after Mr and Ms Brilland saw the financial potential behind the concept – they were clients themselves for nearly 10 years.
La Grange Epicurienne, a 100m2 room comprising a sauna and swimming-pool in a transformed barn, can be booked 15 nights per month with prices reaching €305 a night. Clients range in age from 18 to 70 years.
Gossip and misconceptions in small villages
While the couple first imagined the business would be a sideline generating extra money – she was a French teacher and Mr Brilland a school monitor – they quickly quit their professions to become full-time entrepreneurs.
The couple did not, however, expect one aspect behind the business. Particularly in the small village that is La Ferrière-Bochard, where everyone knows each other.
“We had to live with gossiping, clichés and tittle-tattle,” said Ms Brilland, explaining that many people in the village looked at La Grange Epicurienne suspiciously, believing it was a hotbed for extra-marital affairs or unconventional sexual practices.
The couple said they refuse single nights booked by more than one couple in practices known as libertinism or candaulism which they consider to be a separate business.
However, other entrepreneurs have played on erotism and a derivative of ‘love room’ called ‘secret room’. These are rooms with a hidden room meant to hide more erotic activities, often including a BDSM ‘Saint Andrew’s cross’ or sex toys.
“Erotism is pushed further than in love rooms,” said Mr Deleu, adding that only 50 of them were listed on his website in a figure he estimated represented 5% of the total market.
Anyone expecting the promise of an easy financial bonanza could be disappointed since the business requires solid entrepreneurial spirit and good practical knowledge, says Mr Deleu. He cites the example of a love room business unable to repair a leak in a jacuzzi, which was doomed to make a loss due to the high cost of professional interventions.
The Brillands are already looking to expand La Grange Epicurienne, as they have signed a sales contract with a barn owner. “We want to build something more. Not a love room but something rather more familial,” said Ms Brilland.
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