Hotel wellness is widely accepted in principle but remains challenging to implement effectively.
The hospitality industry recognizes the importance of wellness. Guests prioritize training, sleep, recovery and overall well-being while traveling. Hotel owners view wellness as a tool for stronger positioning, brands want it for relevance and developers like it for project appeal.
While consensus exists on its importance, the main challenges lie elsewhere.
Many hotels treat wellness as a basic amenity package, including upgraded gyms, spas or recovery rooms. Some features add value, while others are expensive and underused.
This presents a challenge. Significant investment in wellness can result in attractive but underused, poorly managed and commercially ambiguous facilities. The debate about whether hotels should invest in wellness is over. The test for these projects is whether they understand what they are building.
Historically, wellness was viewed as an amenity. Gyms met brand standards, spas supported rate positioning and pools enhanced marketing materials. These spaces were expected, but rarely managed as core business units. This is changing rapidly. Wellness now influences guest choice, length of stay, brand perception, local relevance, repeat visitation, membership potential and asset differentiation. In some hotels, it supports rooms. In others, it creates its own revenue. In the right location, with the right operating model, it connects a hotel to the local market in a way rooms alone rarely can.
If wellness is expected to drive revenue, loyalty, and brand positioning, it requires a more strategic approach than simply upgrading the gym facilities.
Not every hotel requires an extensive wellness offering. Some properties benefit from a focused, well-executed approach rather than adding features that do not align with their strategy. Labeling a weak facility as 'wellness' does not make it strategic.
Major issues often arise during the planning phase, when wellness spaces are designed based on inspiration and aesthetics before addressing commercial considerations. This backward approach delays critical decision-making.
Who is this actually for? Guests only, or locals as well? Business travelers, residents, families, athletes, spa guests, members or a mix? How often will they use it? What will they pay for? What needs staffing? Which spaces drive revenue? Which supports positioning? Do these spaces look beautiful in photographs, but sit empty on a Tuesday morning?
Designing wellness spaces without first understanding demand leads to costly, underutilized areas. Each feature must have a clear user, purpose, operational plan and commercial justification. Without this discipline, wellness becomes a set of attractive but ineffective features.
The hotel gym illustrates this issue clearly. Despite increased focus on wellness, many gyms remain afterthoughts. Guests now train seriously and recognize the difference between a well-designed facility and a room with generic equipment.
Common issues include wall-to-wall one-vendor installs, poor layouts, excessive generic cardio equipment, inadequate strength areas and inconsistent maintenance. Rather than building large, unfocused gyms, hotels should prioritize well-planned spaces tailored to guests' needs. Owners should focus on the training experience they want to provide, which informs all design and operational decisions.
The same principle holds well past the gym. A wellness facility is not complete when construction ends. That is when the operational and commercial tests start. Who opens and closes it? Who resets the space? Completion of construction marks the beginning of operational challenges, including staffing, hygiene, programming, usage tracking and performance accountability. If wellness is part of the business model, it needs an operating owner, not just a design owner, and an operating structure that fits the ambition.
The local market is also critical. While hotel guests are transient, local members drive frequency, community, and recurring revenue. However, local membership only succeeds when guest priority, capacity, pricing, and the overall experience are carefully managed.
Owners must clearly define the role of wellness within their asset, whether as an amenity, revenue center, brand differentiator or other function. A wellness strategy must be operationally viable to be effective.
Successful hotels do not rely on elaborate wellness terminology or photogenic recovery rooms. They have owners who can clearly state the target audience and revenue model. Others simply operate costly amenities and call them business units.
Yves Preissler is founder and CEO of Yves Preissler Business Consulting, a hospitality consultancy business based in the Middle East.
This column is part of ISHC Global Insights, a partnership between CoStar News and the International Society of Hospitality Consultants.
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