Driving Booking with Fitness over Spa and Wellness

Wellness and spa are definitely reasons to book a hotel. But do guests select a property based on its gym facilities?

Let’s fire off two examples off the top to support the affirmative:

1. EVEN Hotels: an upscale brand under IHG that’s pivoted against the K-shaped barbell distribution problem of hotels gravitating towards select service and ultraluxury by literally putting barbells in the guestrooms!
2. FORTH Hotel & Club: a luxury independent in Atlanta and member of Preferred Hotels & Resorts that’s differentiated itself with a truly massive fitness center designed around functional movement along with all the latest recovery equipment.

In order words, it can work when the concept is fully thought through and embraced throughout the marketing presentation.

But before looking at some trendsetting hotels, a point of order to distinguish the two broad types of wellness travel dispositions:

1. Wellness-primary travelers: people that are booking a hotel specifically for wellness as the reason to visit or stay occasion (think meditation retreats or multi-night recovery packages).
2. Wellness-secondary travelers: guests that are visiting a destination for another reason but want to stay healthy while on the road.

These two interests together cover a wide swath of properties and brands looking to evolve their amenities and programs to meet the blooming demand for wellness products.

It’s a limiting belief to only think of luxury hotels with grand spas or secluded ultraluxury resorts in exotic locales as capable of having strong wellness branding. When we’re talking about wellness – or fitness as a subcategory of wellness – as a ‘primary booking driver’, what we mean is that this brand equity or specific features are salient enough in the consumer’s mind that they influence the selection process ahead of the comp set.

By asking yourself, “Is fitness now a primary booking driver for my urban hotel?” the chain of reasoning towards a positive or negative answer would be a different thought process than asking, “Is fitness now a primary booking driver for my tropical resort?”

It’s the same question in general, but it has to be answered within the context of the property, the flag and the market. Now, in 2026, fitness can indeed drive bookings and an uplift to ADR for urban corporate branded hotels, independent full-service country resorts and everything in between.

The path to solving what mix of capex and opex will work is unique for every hotel. The best we can do for a single op-ed is inspire you with a selection of pioneering hotels from across the chain-scale that are realizing a resounding success from strong fitness programming.

Like the two examples that we started with, these are properties that definitively answer, “YES!” to how to make fitness work as a demand driver:

• The Bellevue Hotel: Part of Hyatt’s Unbound Collection, this Philadelphia property built out The Sporting Club as a gargantuan 105,000-square-foot facility for locals and guests alike with practically everything that even an Olympiad would need.
• The BodyHoliday: A staple of Saint Lucia since 1988, this is quintessential resort for exercise programming with daily group hikes, rooftop yoga, watersports, aquafit classes, tennis, golf lessons and plenty more. Of particular emphasis, the group classes here are often where people met and form lifelong friendships.
• Canyon Ranch: An American longevity forerunner, the range of activities is incredible while they also have physiotherapy, sports medicine and other clinical practices. More recently, they’ve rolled out their four-night Longevity8 program that brings together diagnostics with advanced wellness treatments.
• EAST Miami: An urban lifestyle brand, this Brickell location for EAST Hotels converted an aboveground meeting space with sweeping views of the city into a functional fitness space that’s open 24/7. Guests love the space as many online and offline reviews have indicated.
• Equinox Hotels: Bringing the luxury fitness brand into the world of hotels, the first property was presciently build atop a 60,000-square-foot Equinox gym within New York’s Hudson Yard development. Not only do guests have access to this facility as well as the hotel’s world-class spa, but each guestroom comes packed with recovery equipment like a foam roller, massage balls and a gym laundry bag.
• Grantley Hall: A fun example from the United Kingdom, this historic estate north of Leeds built out an architectural marvel of a luxury gym so that guests can ‘work out in style’ as well as other exciting features like a motorsport simulator experience that bundles in a bit of conditioning and trying out the Batak Reaction Trainer that F1 drivers use to hone their reflexes.
• The Ranch: A mainstay of Malibu and a renowned health retreat for Angelenos for decades, this hiking and exercise retreat brand recently opened a second location in Hudson Valley to much acclaim, proving that there’s a huge market for strong natured-driven activity programming within driving range of major urban centers.
• SIRO Hotels: Now with two locations in Dubai and the Montenegro coast, this stepsibling of One&Only makes its cutting-edge fitness centers a cornerstone of its marketing presentation, while the guestrooms come outfitted with zero-gravity chairs, pumping bags, Swedish ladders or other exercise equipment.

And we could go on! There’s tons of potential as we’ve hopefully demonstrated, but here are four overall pieces of advice to close out:

1. Move the gym out of the dingy basement then make the space inspirational and social
2. In-room exercise is a big plus for people that don’t have time for a full session downstairs
3. Be the gateway to the great outdoors by offering activities and equipment rentals
4. Various types of physiotherapy can be a great way to complement traditional spa services