Hotel amenities in New York used to be tiny bars of soap. Then came free newspapers and movies, and complimentary breakfasts. As the tourism market heated up again, hotels in the last two years began to add wireless Internet and flat-screen televisions.
Now, industry analysts say in-room fitness equipment and spas are the next new thing.
For years, high-end hotels have served guests’ fitness needs by wheeling in equipment or sending in personal trainers and masseuses. But now treadmills are on offer at more expensive hotels, while mid-priced hoteliers are providing more portable exercise kits that include dumbbells and yoga mats.
While the trend toward in-room gyms has gained traction nationwide and allows hotels to charge higher room rates, experts say it may be limited in New York hotels because of the smaller rooms and high demand.
In Manhattan, mid-priced hoteliers offering basic exercise kits include the Marriott and Hilton chains, while in-room exercise equipment can be found at the higher-end Lowell, Omni, and Rihga Royal hotels.
The four-star Westin New York at Times Square recently revamped rooms on several floors to include in-room gym equipment.
Tucked into the corner of the hotel’s 350-square-foot rooms, the Reebok Life Fitness Treadmill is fairly unobtrusive, as is a custom-designed fitness shelf that holds Reebok pilates/yoga and spinning DVDs, dumbbells, resistance tubing, a stability ball, and a yoga mat.
Similarly, the electronic Shiatsu Massage chair found in the Westin’s 13 spa-inspired guest rooms complements the overall design ethos, with aromatherapy bath amenities, dimmer switches, and a white tea scent all adding the appropriate mood enhancers.
“Health is on everyone’s mind right now, and, as a platform, over the next few years it’s going to get pushed out more,” said Nolan Hecht, director of brokerage Cushman & Wakefield’s hospitality transactions group.
But in the New York market, where the average hotel room size is 275 square feet, the trend has only so far to go. Hotels have to have a bit more than 300 square feet to introduce equipment into the rooms, said Hecht, who believes the trend will be limited to retrofitting rather than new construction of rooms that include gyms.
The Westin charges an additional $90 for their spa rooms, a 20 percent premium over the average daily rate and a no-brainer, considering the limited cost it took in retrofitting the room — basically substituting a double-bed with a single-king to create more space, Hecht said.
Karen Colliton-Thomson, director of sales and marketing at the Westin, said the addition of spa rooms was intended to build customer good-will as well as to have a built-in profit motive. “It’s a little bit of both,” she said. “On the rooms that we do try to add amenities to, we’ve added value to the room so we’re expecting a premium for those upgraded accommodations.”
Construction costs in New York are too high for the trend toward in-room gym equipment to lead to new development models, said Jeff Dauray, a senior vice president of CB Richard Ellis’ investment properties institutional group.
“You’re going to effectively have a lower density that would be extremely expensive in a market producing 84 to 86 percent occupancy,” Dauray said. “I don’t necessarily see any fundamental shift in hotel construction design to accommodate for workouts in rooms. That wouldn’t intuitively make sense, but there will be additional services offered.”
Dauray also pointed to new design trends such as larger bathrooms and lobbies that limit the available space developers have to work with in the first place.
Still, as hotels continue to upgrade their amenity packages and guests become accustomed to the notion of an in-room gym or spa, the trend toward adding these amenities will gain traction, Dauray said. Even in New York City, perhaps when there’s a downturn in the market, enough pressure could be brought to bear upon hoteliers that the in-room trend becomes incorporated into the fundamental design aesthetic.
“It could happen in a downturn of market performance when consumers are expecting more services and demand is not so strong,” Hecht said. “Right now, all the power is with the hotels, but in a downturn you’ll see people strategizing and we might see some growth in that segment.”