The 3 Reasons Why
Our team at FitnessOnDemand™ is busier than ever – and continues to grow. 3 Reasons Why, our regular feature on the faces behind the names, this week talks to Greg Shively, National Account Manager for Hospitality.
Q1: Greg, you work with hotels all across America? What’s the current state of play with on-demand fitness content in the hospitality category?
Answer: We are at a very interesting time. Many hotels are still a little behind the curve compared to health clubs and multi-unit housing properties that have already widely adopted on-demand fitness as a way to offer custom and cost-effective fitness content and accessibility for their users. That being said, we’re having great conversations with Fitness Directors and General Managers at leading hotel brands about how on-demand fitness and wellness content can really help them differentiate their gym spaces in their properties, and upgrade the guest experience. In 18 months on-demand content is going to be widespread across the industry.
Q2: Is there unrealized opportunity that on-demand fitness and wellness content creates?
Answer: Absolutely there is. The lower tiers of the hospitality hierarchy are upgrading and adding luxe touches to their guest environments and with the competition up and down the food chain, it’s very hard for properties to stand out. Amenities have become commodities and are expected by guests, so today the real frontier for brands to differentiate themselves is personalization.
How can you make the guest feel that their stay is personally tailored to them and their interests? On-demand fitness and wellness content are a big piece of that puzzle that GM’s and Fitness Managers are struggling with. What’s more personalized and custom than enabling a guest to continue in-room or in-studio with the same fitness classes and workout content that they choose and access at home or in their gym?
On the flip side of that is the ability to create a very tailored and guest-centric experience. Things like guided meditation or stretching exercises to help guests attending busy conferences in town unwind at their end of their day, or an opportunity for them to try a whole new kind of class when they’re away from home and out of their usual routine. All of these things are about very simply, subtly and effectively enhancing the guest’s experience with a hotel’s brand.
Q3: What about the cost-benefit equation?
Answer: On-demand content is actually a fraction of the cost that hotels have put into traditional exercise machines that age out very quickly, are expensive to maintain and don’t provide differentiation or personalization for the modern traveler. Fitness content can be streamed on any mobile device by guests at their convenience in their rooms with little more than a resistance band or exercise mat. Or hotel gyms can become very high function activated spaces with self-service touch screens serving hundreds of workouts and classes tailored to a guest’s exact preferences.
It's also really easy to unlock unrealized potential with streamed content. Many hotels have conference rooms that sit vacant many days a year. Fitness classes and custom content can be streamed easily to these rooms, or any room needing optimization, creating wonderful guest fitness experiences that contribute to their overall stay, memory value, and brand loyalty next time they book a trip.
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