Gourmet food items personalized with the Deer Valley Resort name make great gifts and souvenirs.

Resort gift shops are not hardware stores and that is why the tongue-incheek rules of gift buying for men do not apply. Namely that first, he cannot have too many cordless drills, second, anything with the word socket or ratchet, or third, anything for his car, works. Fortunately, resorts are resplendent in outdoor sports that interest men, so a related gift is usually a winner.

A further clue to buying for men can be gleaned by their own shopping behaviors. Paco Underhill, author of the best-seller “Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping,” observed that men do not pay as much attention to price tags as women do, and they veer towards the practical. So when in doubt, shoppers wondering through a limited section of the resort shop relegated to men’s gifts do well with items of practicality and quality, and sporting a logo, a bonus. Women are buying for men 75 percent of the time whether for son, husband, father or nephew, said Rebecca Leonard, retail manager at the Samoset Resort in Rockport, Maine. Otherwise, it is men buying for men.

Women are buying for men 75 percent of the time whether for son, husband, father or nephew, said Rebecca Leonard, retail manager at the Samoset Resort in Rockport, Maine. Otherwise, it is men buying for men.

Men’s gifts take center stage in this display at the Travel Traders LLC Hilton Buffalo Thunder shop in Santa Fe, N.M. Display designers create themes when presenting men’s gifts to shoppers at the company’s stores.

The clocks, pencil holders, pen/pencil sets and other sport-themed, fine wood grain desk accessories fit the category of practical and usable most often purchased for men at the Samoset shop, although overall logoed mens clothing is the biggest seller that contributes to the store’s $260,000 in annual sales.

Fitting the bill for the golfer is the golf ball desk clock, or for the nautilus, a high-end, woodenbased clock in the style of a tide clock framed in a porthole.

“It’s tough to find true men’s gifts, which could be a whole new market to open up,” Leonard said.

Predominantly the jet set business travelers pick up gift items in one of the Miami, Fla.-based Travel Traders, LLC 220-plus stores, said souvenir Assistant Buyer Patricia Hernandez. The male customer, attending a conference or other business function, stopping to pick up the basics might stumble upon something nice for himself or to bring back as a gift, or a woman attendee, for a husband or a significant other.

“Hands down, the best selling men’s gift items are things to put on the desk, something they will use, with practicality, and can’t be bought at a regular department store,” Hernandez said. Also popular are lapel pens, bath and body products tailored to men, and travel size shaving kits for those on the go.

	This Signatures shop display at Deer Valley Resort features gifts with a masculine tone.

“We steer toward high-end desktop items,” said Hernandez, “not an ordinary paperweight. Rather we regionalize to present one that won’t be seen elsewhere, specific and tailored to the target market.” So that at the Hyatt Grand Champions Resort and Spa in Indian Wells, Calif., for example, golf balls, hats and other souvenir gift items are logoed with the city, state, or hotel name. Souvenirs and gifts are also themed, paired up with apparel, matching in color or graphics for a cohesive look.

Whether women are shopping for husbands or men for themselves, the gold panning kits for sale at the gift shop of the Coffee Creek Ranch in Trinity Center, Calif., are irresistible. “People want gold and need the kit to pan for it in the creek, said owner Ruth Hartman, whose seasonal store sells close to $9,000 in merchandise annually. “We used to sell gold in little jars when it was $200 an ounce. Today, at $900 an ounce, we’d have to know the spot price of gold because it goes up every day.”

Also qualifying as men’s gifts are baseball caps, pocket knives, insulated coffee mugs, T-shirts, a book on gold panning, ammunition and clay pigeons for trap shooting, cowboy hats, leather gloves for horseback riding, and also sacks of dirt packed with gold pieces, sold separate from the panning kits.

Guests arrive at the dude ranch, Flathead Lake Lodge in Big Fork, Mont., to be cowboys for the week. So the store, which garners $120,000 in annual sales, is stocked with various types of western items such as made in Montana buffalo and elk hide wallets, money clips and checkbooks covers, and Montana Silversmith men’s watches and money clips. Best sellers for men are the belt buckles.

The guys do not shop very often at the Cavalier Hotel Virginia Beach in Virginia Beach, Va. Controller Regina Dixon noted that they send the ladies in for tanning lotion, hats, or flip-flops. Dixon, also buyer for the store, stocks men’s swimsuits, T-shirts and straw hats. “Men’s items aren’t big sellers, she said. “ We’re only open four months out of the year and when I shop at the beginning of the season, the least of my focus is on men. They even walk in and say it’s a women’s shop.”

Cohesively displayed logo gifts and apparel in a shop at the Willard Washington D.C., an Intercontinental Hotels and Resorts property. Unique desk accessories are the top-selling men’s category at Travel Traders LLC shops.

A midweek incentive program for guests who check in on Sunday and stay until Thursday entitles them to a $20 gas card, a special room rate, and $100 in Cavalier Bucks to spend anywhere on property. Many choose to trim a large part of the bucks down in the gift shop. A wife might toss in a straw hat for the husband more out of obligation to spend than out of necessity, Dixon said.

The main focus at any of the four shops at the Deer Valley Resort in Park City, Utah, is logoed winter items, said Director of Merchandising Georgia Anderson, adding that the women who usually purchase for the men in their lives look for something unique and again, logoed. Swiss army knifes, money clips, and golf and ski accessories, such as logoed golf towels, qualify. Selling very popularly are flasks and caps, which move widely for men and women. “They’re easy because they’re not sized and under $25, at a good price point,” Anderson said.

The closest thing to that tool men are always glad to receive is the top-selling Leatherman all purpose Skeletool, which features a stainless-steel blade, needle nose/regular pliers, wire cutters, four bits and universal bit driver, and bottle opener, handy for skiers in the winter and bikers in the summer. Any season, it is a pleaser