How Fitness Spaces Benefit Hotels

Wellness travel and tourism is a top trend for business, leisure and blended business/leisure (bleisure) travel segments. Despite the various preferences of these groups, one hotel asset serves them all: your property’s fitness space or hotel gym. Past trends encouraged hotels to develop fitness spaces that could accommodate anyone. But during the pandemic, people identified what they cared about and let go of low-priority attachments. For this reason, as you look to refresh your fitness space, focus on serving the guests who want to use it. 

The benefits of doing so will: 

• Attract business, leisure and bleisure travelers who care about maintaining their fitness and wellbeing while traveling. 
• Improve guest satisfaction scores, as you focus on meeting the needs of your most active guests. 
• Improve guest loyalty, as wellness-focused travelers discover meaningful experiences and wellbeing amenities tailored to their lifestyle. 
• Distinguish your property from the competition, as you promote the fitness and wellbeing-centered amenities you offer that other properties do not. 
• Create potential revenue streams. For example, hotels with robust fitness spaces could sell access to locals, utilizing a health club/membership model. 

Outfitting a space or creating wellbeing amenities doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated. For example, if your hotel doesn’t have a gym, you can create the space needed by converting unused space. For example, an underutilized business center, convention or meeting space, or even two guest rooms can be repurposed into a fitness space. QR codes can help guests access suggested exercises or video tutorials. Connectivity is another way to provide valuable guest services. Life Fitness equipment already features app connectivity and on-demand, customizable fitness programming. And by leveraging existing in-room technology, you can quickly and efficiently add wellbeing-focused programming for in-room use. 

Don’t forget that privacy is a luxury. Guest rooms with racks and bags of accessories, which allow for in-room workouts, can be sold at a premium rate. 

Life Fitness can help you attract and serve this important customer segment. Life Fitness has a half-century of experience meeting the needs of people passionate about maintaining their health and fitness, and global expertise in creating custom fitness spaces and wellbeing experiences for consumers, hotels and fitness facilities around the world. Our consulting expertise can help you not only attract guests interested in health and wellness, but also develop new revenue streams from your health club-style offerings. 

We know that fitness trends continue to evolve and that your hotel has brand standards to maintain. But hotel guests prefer a variety of fitness and wellness options. Understanding how to meet those needs and respond to new trends is important, but knowing how they will impact your guests is crucial. 

Want to learn more? Continue to Part 3 of our blog series, "The 3 Types of Fitness Enthusiasts Attracted to Hotels and What They Want" here.