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"To Loiter, Perchance to Spend", New York Times, © Drew Limsky, 3/7/06

An all-you-can eat chocolate bar on Friday and Saturday nights at the Peninsula Chicago. Chair massages and guided meditation at the Affinia Gardens in New York. Watercolors, etchings and ink drawings on display at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington.

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Peter Thompson for The New York Times

The Peninsula Chicago's all-you-can-eat chocolate bar grew so popular that a rival hotel, the Conrad, copied the idea and hired the Peninsula manager who created it.

Even as hotels post record occupancies, some are looking for other ways to make money. In many cases, they have turned to their public spaces, seeing them as more than simply passageways to somewhere else. Instead, the hotels have come up with ways to entice their guests to linger in those spaces, and perhaps, spend more money.

"If you add a chocolate bar, that's a space that was not revenue-producing, and now it creates revenue," said Reneta McCarthy, lecturer at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration.

Even supposedly free amenities in the public spaces generate indirect earnings, she said. "Don't kid yourself — these things are all about getting a higher room rate," Ms. McCarthy said. "An art collection helps the customers feel like they're getting more value."

The enticements, added primarily by luxury hotels since the travel industry began to rebound in 2002 and 2003, tend to focus on creating an atmosphere for socializing rather than on selling products.

"I think the idea of lobby retail shops has seen its day," said Paul M. McManus, president and chief executive of Leading Hotels of the World, a marketing organization that represents 440 hotels worldwide. He said that hotels had begun offering more "lifestyle choices," adding: "It's a different approach. It has to do with creating an ambience for the hotel as a warm and comfortable place to be. Who's attracted to a tiara in a showcase?"

Among the new frills: celebrity chefs, live music and themed movie nights. The Four Seasons Hotel in Miami, which shows movies every Thursday night on its rooftop, opened with a Humphrey Bogart mini-festival, and at the Baglioni Hotel London, Fellini films and other Italian classics are screened on the first Sunday of each month.

The two-year-old chocolate bar at the Peninsula Chicago, which offers unlimited cappuccino and desserts for under $30, became so popular that the Conrad Hotel six blocks away borrowed the idea and hired the Peninsula hotel manager who created it.

The Renaissance Arts Hotel in New Orleans, which closed only briefly after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, offers an interactive "artist of the month" program in which the featured artist conducts a wine tasting once a week, pairing the flavor, notes and hues of the wine to his or her artwork. And at the Four Seasons in Washington, the walls are adorned with 2,000 pieces of art from the private collection of William Louis-Dreyfus (until recently, the holdings of the Louis Dreyfus Group, where Mr. Dreyfus is chairman, included the hotel).

"People respond to real art as opposed to reproduced art or 'hotel art,' which is there just to fill a space," says Mary Anne Costello, who manages the art collection for the Louis Dreyfus Group.

The initiatives are intended to appeal to all the senses. There is a harpist at tea time in the Ritz-Carlton New York, Central Park, and a jazz trio in the buttoned-up St. Regis in New York, which also unveiled its new Remède spa last September. Every Tuesday, the Affinia Gardens in New York offers chair massages and guided meditation in its Serenity Lounge for "Tranquillity Hour." In San Francisco, the Mandarin Oriental reinvigorated its lounge by adding a sushi bar and offering live jazz piano, while Raffles L'Ermitage in Beverly Hills is opening a patio lounge where cigars, free cookies and wireless Internet access are available.

At the Regent Beverly Wilshire in Los Angeles, the big news is the hotel's expected opening in June of a Wolfgang Puck restaurant designed by Richard Meier. "Hotel restaurants don't have the best rap for food," said Ms. McCarthy of Cornell, "but now they know that a buzzy restaurant draws publicity. Look at what the Waldorf-Astoria has done with its Peacock Alley." The historic restaurant reopened in November 2005 after a $5.5 million renovation.

The French architect Pierre-Yves Rochon, who oversaw the redesign of the Four Seasons George V in Paris, knows well the difficulty of keeping guests inside the hotel. He said that hotel dining was never "in the education of the French," especially with so many outstanding choices outside.

But when Le Cinq, the restaurant at the George V that Mr. Rochon redesigned, emerged as a three-star Michelin triumph, the Four Seasons Hotel in New York, owned by the Beanie Babies founder Ty Warner, enlisted Mr. Rochon to overhaul its lounge and dining areas. This spring, 5757, the former restaurant at the Four Seasons New York, will reopen as L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon.

The Algonquin Hotel in Midtown Manhattan plays off the days when Dorothy Parker and George S. Kaufman traded quips. Guests can borrow one of two iPods programmed with more than a hundred poems, short stories and books.

While seated on worn leather sofas that ooze shabby gentility, guests can choose highbrow (Robert Frost) or lowbrow (Dan Brown); they can quickly sample Carl Sandburg's 11-second-long "Fog" or settle in for the day with "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell.

The oceanfront Ritz-Carlton on Miami Beach, which attracts both business and leisure travelers, manages to keep a good number of them indoors. Vince Parry, an advertising executive from New York, said that the $150 nightly premium he paid for a club-level suite was well worth it. On a recent visit, he said, "we camped out at the club lounge," referring to the homey space that offers five daily food presentations. The action on South Beach failed to lure him away. "You're gazing out at the beach," he said, "at the same time you're being pampered by that Miami hospitality with a cocktail in hand."

Perhaps it is exactly the feeling of safety that Mr. Parry describes that keeps customers on the property. Steve Glaser, an Arcadia, Calif., resident who owns a construction company, said he enjoyed hearing the Los Angeles blues legend Mickey Champion at the Ritz-Carlton Pasadena. The house wine might be $8 a glass, but Mr. Glaser said he still favored the Ritz over a typical neighborhood bar because the hotel did not charge a cover. And, he said, "There are no fights."