features
Wellness hotels: Travel well
It’s hard to maintain a fitness and wellbeing routine when you’re away from home, but a growing number of hotel operators are stepping in with a solution. Kate Cracknell and Jane Kitchen report
Wellness tourism is a booming sector. New data from the updated Global Spa & Wellness Economy Monitor – unveiled in October by the Global Wellness Institute (GWI) – reveals that globally, this sector grew from US$494bn in 2013 to US$546bn at the end of 2015. The same report offers predictions of a 10 per cent growth each year to 2017.
Wellness tourism is defined as all travel associated with the pursuit of maintaining or enhancing wellbeing. It spans all kinds of travel, from fitness-focused or adventure travel – such as hiking, water sports and cycling – to yoga retreats and wellness cruises, destination spas and resorts.
It also embraces the more mainstream ‘healthy hotels’ that are developing a broader fitness and healthy food offering, as well as sleep programming. This includes almost all the big brands, from Westin to the Four Seasons. The GWI says there’s a ‘wellness war’ going on between the global hotel chains – hardly surprising when wellness tourists spend 137 per cent more per trip than the average tourist.
We take a look at the latest wellness initiatives from the major hotel operators.
MARRIOTT ‘STAY WELL’ ROOMS
UNITED STATES
Having debuted its Stay Well product in Las Vegas in 2012, wellness real estate firm Delos completed the installation of Stay Well rooms – wellness-focused rooms that it designs and builds into third party hotels – in six Marriott properties in the US in June 2016.
“The demand for healthy travel is growing rapidly. We’ve received a tremendous number of requests to open Stay Well rooms,” says Delos founder and CEO Paul Scialla.
Delos’ Stay Well hotel rooms offer evidence-based health and wellness features that aim to optimise guests’ health, vitality, happiness and wellbeing when travelling. Features include advanced air purification, essential oil aromatherapy, circadian mood lighting, non-toxic cleaning products, dawn simulation, vitamin C-infused showers and a healthy mattress.
Through the Stay Well Mobile App, guests in the Marriott Stay Well rooms also enjoy access to a new jet lag tool, as well as sleep, nutrition and stress management programmes. The Stay Well rooms and suites at Marriott are available for approximately US$30 (€27, £23) more per night above normal room rates.
“By infusing wellness into the built environment, the Stay Well experience is changing the way we travel today,” says Dr Deepak Chopra, founder of The Chopra Foundation and a Delos Advisory Board member.
EVEN HOTELS
UNITED STATES
Even Hotels – the wellness brand launched by Intercontinental Hotel Group (IHG) in 2014 – opened its fourth location in New York City in August 2016. A further eight locations are in the pipeline to open across the US over the next two to three years.
The Even model is focused on four pillars of wellness: Keep Active (fitness), Eat Well (nutrition), Rest Easy (overall wellbeing) and Accomplish More (productivity) – with business travellers a key audience for the brand.
“We’re seeing a really strong response, from both men and women, to offering a brand that allows them to focus on their wellbeing,” says Jason Moskal, vice president of lifestyle brands for IHG.
Even’s philosophy is about allowing guests to experience wellness on their own terms. For instance, while the hotels all feature state-of-the-art fitness centres or gyms, they also have in-room training zones that include a foam roller, yoga mat, yoga block, core exercise ball and the Even Hotels Trainer – a mounted fitness wall that includes resistance bands. The brand has also developed 19 fitness videos and an in-room training guide that shows guests different ways to use the equipment.
At the New York hotel – located in Times Square – group cycling and yoga classes are offered in addition to morning runs along the banks of the Hudson River. There’s also a 1,200sq ft fitness centre.
Meanwhile, from a nutrition standpoint, Even Hotels’ food and beverage platform – Cork & Kale – offers healthy options for the sort of grab-and-go meals business travellers often need. There are heart-healthy and low-fat options, paleo or vegetarian-friendly dishes in addition to sweet indulgences. Guests can also order their food for the next day through the platform’s Good-to-Go service. 
"We’re seeing a really strong response, from both men & women, to offering a brand that allows them to focus on their wellbeing" - Jason Moskal, IHG (Pictured)
ROCCO FORTE
GLOBAL
Luxury hotel group Rocco Forte launched a new wellbeing concept – Rocco Forte Spas – at the beginning of this year, created by Sir Rocco Forte’s daughter Irene and rolled out across the group’s 10 luxury properties. Its aim: Not only to create an unforgettable experience at its properties, but also to help create new habits in its guests that can be continued at home.
The new programme has four components: fitness, food, beauty products and spa treatments. Irene Forte explains: “We had very nice individual spas, but no overall unified concept and no health and fitness aspect. I saw a real gap there.”
The Rocco Forte Fitness pillar sees gyms equipped by Technogym, with the manufacturer’s My Wellness Cloud app used by PTs to track and monitor training, wherever the guest may be.
Running maps are provided in all guest rooms, and many of the hotels offer sightseeing running tours, combining the culture of the city with fitness.
At the Verdura flagship spa in Sicily, there are sunset and sunrise yoga sessions, plus jogging, trekking and cycling trails through the resort’s olive, orange and lemon groves. Other locations also play to their environment: at Hotel de Rome in Berlin, guests can enjoy rooftop yoga sessions and unique views of the city.
Rocco Forte Spas has also partnered with DNA Fit, a programme that uses scientific advancements in human genomics to analyse the relationship between genes, nutrition and lifestyle.
A partnership with luxury brand Back Label has led to an exclusive line of handcrafted fitness clothing, and Rocco Forte will also stock active wear by Every Second Counts – including Kit&Run, a new service for guests with no gym kit.
Meanwhile, Rocco Forte Nourish is a new healthy food offering, with programmes tailored to each location. 
"We had very nice individual spas, but no overall unified concept and no health and fitness aspect. I saw a real gap there" - Irene Forte (Pictured)
A NEW ERA OF HOSPITALITY BRANDS
But it’s not only the hotel operators that are broadening their horizons by branching into fitness and wellbeing. We’re also starting to see non-traditional hospitality brands moving into wellness hotels...
Hot off the press is the news that Amazon, via its subsidiary Zappos, is eyeing an entry into wellness hospitality.
In a talk at the Global Wellness Summit last month, Maggie Hsu, advisor to online clothing company Zappos, said the e-commerce company is already looking at customer service in hospitals as part of its Downtown Project in Las Vegas.
A portion of its US$50m investment in the redevelopment project is funding Turntable Health – a primary care clinic that will run on a membership model, similar to a gym. For a monthly fee of around US$100, patients will have unlimited access to physicians, who will therefore be financially incentivised to keep patients – or ‘customers’ – healthy.
Hsu said hotels would be a natural follow-on from this: “We’re inspired by what Delos and others are doing, and have thought a lot about how we can do a wellness hotel in Las Vegas.”
Also this year, US-based health club operator Equinox announced plans to build a standalone hotel business. It’s an interesting move for a fitness provider – but then Equinox is a subsidiary of The Related Companies, one of the largest real estate development and property management companies in the US.
Verena Haller, senior vice president for design at Equinox Hotels, explains: “With the strong lifestyle brand we already have in Equinox, we believe it’s a natural progression for us to move into the hotel sector with an upscale, fitness-focused hospitality offering.
“The first hotel will open in Manhattan at the beginning of 2019. It will feature a 60,000sq ft fitness club, plus swimming pools and a spa. Rollout plans are focused on the US for now, but long term, what brand wouldn’t want to go global? London appeals to us, and we also see opportunities in Spain, Asia, Australia.”
Meanwhile, health club operator Aspria opened its first hotel in 2009. Hotels are all on-site rather than standalone – at its clubs in Hamburg, Hannover, Berlin and Brussels – and are primarily designed for members’ use, similar to the likes of Soho House in London. However, there is some availability for non-members.
