affluent , educated , and well-traveled clients .
It is important to keep in mind that guests who choose to stay at highcaliber hotels , resorts , safaris , and other luxury lodgings , can sniff out a generic , or sales-oriented experience from a million miles away … on a private jet .
In August , Betsy Goldberg for Virtuoso highlighted that one of the hottest topics for hoteliers , the wellness travel niche , “ is expected to hit $ 680 billion by next year ”. She continued , citing statistics from the Global Wellness Summit , “ it ’ s expanding 50 percent faster than the overall tourism industry .”
With countless industry insiders and studies pointing to wellness travel as a current and future source of booming revenue in the industry , the question becomes : how to stand out ?
One widely recognized wellness amenity many luxury guests seek is yoga . Providing a mat in guest rooms upon check-in is the half-hearted attempt to conform to the wellness trend , which many hotels make . Suffice it to say , the act is transparent and cliché . Where are the hotels encouraging this and other popular wellness activities in a memorable and authentic manner ?
Experts in the field have various suggestions on how to accomplish this daunting but worthwhile feat . Lyn Mettler for U . S . News and World Report , in a recent article on “ How Hotel Rooms Are Evolving for Today ’ s Wellness Traveler ”, indicates that “ personalization ( is ) becoming a growing trend ”.
With that in mind , I researched a few examples of properties going a step beyond to personalize the experiences offered , in order to make it unique to their niche .
At San Camp in the Kalahari Desert , guests are encouraged to focus on serenity in one of the world ’ s most remote landscapes with nothingness
stretching into the horizon . It includes a special tent dedicated to yoga and meditation , in an effort to encourage guests to shed their urban lives and get in touch with their spirituality in a serene , naturally minimal setting , with limited distraction .
While yoga on a rooftop terrace in NYC might seem like a logical offering to a hotelier attempting to capitalize on the wellness yoga craze , the buzz of traffic and sirens would certainly distract from the goal of Zen . A more apt wellness offering at a destination such as this would be based on the vibrant energy and unique attractions for which NYC is known .
A hotel I discovered who nailed this on the head was Dream Downtown . Their “ Brains and Booty ” experience gives guests passes to Soul Cycle to get pumped up physically , includes a visit to a museum to stimulate mental wellness , juice offerings from a local café to cleanse internally and a blowout at the onsite spa to be NYC chic and stylish .
As we can learn from this example , offering a generic wellness experience simply to keep up with the competition doesn ’ t make much sense from an ROI perspective . Knowing how to incorporate the strengths and unique offerings of the destination