Skift Take
The profit potential for wellness can vary a lot between major and minor investments, according to new data. Hotel developers need to plan carefully.
Early Check-In
Editor’s Note: Skift Senior Hospitality Editor Sean O’Neill brings readers exclusive reporting and insights into hotel deals and development, and how those trends are making an impact across the travel industry.
I received a lot of reader response back in March when I wrote about hotel strategies in wellness. So I went back to the well on wellness and found fresh data from another authoritative source.
The Wellness Real Estate Report 2023, was recently released by RLA Global, a consultancy, with statistical help from HotStats, a hotel benchmarking service.
The report is a rare effort to quantify trends in how hotels tap interest in "wellness," including gyms, spas, meditation, yoga classes, adventure activities, healthful food offerings, and cosmetic or medical care. The report analyzed data at 2,600 properties worldwide with some wellness. Hotels generating wellness and leisure revenue of more than $1 million and/or at least 10% of total hotel revenues in 2022 generated $273 a night in total revenue per available room — a figure down 29% from before the pandemic. Occupancy was 61%, just three percentage points off 2019 levels. The picture for hotels with major wellnes