Fitness Clubs Are Becoming Hotels – and Vice Versa

Luxury Travel News

The Skift New Luxury column is our weekly column focused on the business of selling luxury travel, the people and companies creating and selling experiences, emerging trends, and the changing consumer habits around the sector.

In the past couple of years, we’ve seen a number of big hotel companies add fitness or wellness brands to their portfolios.

The reason is simple: High-end consumers are now prepared to spend money on making themselves look and feel good. The likes of Hyatt and AccorHotels have identified this trend and want a piece of the action.

But when a trend like this goes mainstream there are always skeptics (usually from that industry) who are keen to point out that the big players don’t always get it right.

So it kind of makes sense that we’d start to see some people go the other way. Equinox is developing hotels and the Midtown Athletic Club already has a boutique property at its Chicago location.

For the right type of health club, fitness center, or spa, adding a hotel could be a smart move.

For feedback or news tips, reach out via email at [email protected] or tweet me @paddywhyte.

— Patrick Whyte, Europe Editor

5 Looks at Luxury

Urban Sports Resorts Are Closing the Gap Between Fitness and Hospitality: Some of the country’s highest-end fitness clubs are taking a gander at the hospitality space. But one athletic club in Chicago has already laid claim to opening the country’s first “urban sports resort.”

Virgin Galactic Moves Closer to Shuttling Tourists to Space After Test Flight: It counts as progress that nobody died when Virgin Galactic tested its rocketship this time. It’s still unclear when, if ever, expensive suborbital flights will become a reality for wealthy vacationers, especially considering the demonstrable safety risks.

The First Luxury Hotel in Space Is Set to Launch in 2021: Welcome to the new space race, which now includes Orion Span, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. For now, however, we’d much prefer an earthly luxury hotel experience to one that will set us back $9.5 million a stay.

Swiss Ski Resort Reopens After Spat That Could Cast Pall on Olympic Hopes: Sounds like a lot of messiness in this ski getaway. If the resort and the community want to host future Olympic events, best to sort out the drama pronto.

AccorHotels Takes Stake in African Hotel Chain Mantis Group: AccorHotels said it would look at doing more deals in 2018 and it’s been true to its word. Like Accor’s deal to buy the similar-sounding Mantra in Australia, the Mantis investment gives Accor greater exposure to a market outside its European heartland.

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Skift Europe Editor Patrick Whyte [[email protected]] curates the New Luxury newsletter. Skift emails the newsletter every Tuesday.

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