Just six years ago, the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas and wellness real estate firm Delos partnered to create the first Stay Well rooms – designed as hotel rooms that “optimise and support the physical and emotional health and wellbeing of guests”.
Delos worked with doctors at Columbia University Medical School and the Cleveland Clinic, as well as architects and engineers, to develop the first 42 Stay Well rooms, which made their debut in 2012, offering features like circadian lighting, air purification, aromatherapy and vitamin C-infused showers – all available at an upcharge of around US$30 (€26, £23) a night (see SB14/1 p28).
Today, the idea has expanded, with both Marriott and Four Seasons collaborating with Delos and other hotel brands to create their own in-house versions of wellness rooms to cater for growing demand.
Whether they’re offering fresh air, tools for a better night’s sleep, in-room fitness or a space to meditate, these rooms aim to help guests take their wellness lifestyles with them when they travel. Mark VanStekelenburg, managing director at CBRE Hotels Advisory in New York says: “There’s a global desire for access to wellness and fitness. Consumers want a choice. And while the implementation of this continues to evolve, access to wellness is here to stay rather than being a fad.”
Louise Molloy, head of consultancy for Dubai-based The Wellness, says wellness rooms can help create unique positioning, add to the guest experience and set a brand apart from its competition. “A better understanding of just what kind of reach wellness has beyond the spa is becoming more apparent than ever,” says Molloy. “I think it will be inevitable that wellness rooms will become a standard part of any hotel brand’s design guidelines.”
Here then, we take a look at some of the ways in which hotel operators are taking wellness outside of the spa and into the guestroom – and beyond.
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