We’re in a loneliness epidemic. AI slop is everywhere and consuming everything.
And everyone on your algorithm seems to be selling the fix: get off your phone. Buy a Brick. Eat healthy. Blah Blah Blah. All this online discourse has become truly exhausting.
Why can’t we all just make this loneliness fix a bit simpler? Get together with good people. Hang out more. (We’ve said it before)!
Another thing we’ve talked about at length? Great hotels as places of community that bring people together. They make you feel like you’re a part of something. Like the Ritz-Carlton Grand Cayman during The Greatest Hotel Cookout in the World. Or even just heading to your local hotel bar. (Having a conversation with a stranger will do you mighty well.)
We all know about the importance of the hotel bar. It’s a requirement for top hotels, a great democratic space of our time. But where else can hotels win in building this much sought after feeling of community? Given that it’s in the title, you probably already know our answer. But stay with us now, because the why is the interesting part.
Think about what makes the bar work. It’s a space people seek out on their own, for fun and for company. A space where they’ll gladly pay up (overpay) for a great drink. And for the atmosphere. Hotels figured that out ages ago…it’s why the bar is sacred.
The gym is a similar animal. People already go on their own. They go, often, to meet people. They also already pay significant premiums for it. And yet hotels treat it like a closet with a treadmill.
How many times have you gone to the hotel gym and felt nothing? Often it’s not even that you’re disappointed—you go in not expecting much and not much is delivered. They’re empty, the lighting is bad, the machines are outdated, and for some reason there’s never a proper instructor. Regardless of the room rate.
Worse yet, there’s always some guy who looks like he’s from Connecticut on the treadmill taking a work call. Probably on speakerphone.
Rule #97: The hotel gym is not the venue for work calls. Leave the business to your room.
And yet… gyms are a great place for socializing! We’re in the midst of the wellness era, and gyms have learned they’ve become a place that can play in the third space space (forgive us, that was intended).
Where you work out has become a status symbol that garners about as much attention as where you vacation. As such, people are willing to pay good money for ‘luxury’ workouts. Just take one look at the obnoxious Alo yacht…
I was just recently home in Paris and went to see my barber who I’ve been with through 10 years and 6 different locations. One of those locations was within the gym of the Parisian 5-star Hotel Brach in the 16th arrondissement. It’s a nice place if you can look past the godforsaken neighborhood. And it’s bumping. Always.
They have great equipment, a stunning pool, and endless classes with personal trainers available to make sure the work is getting done right. The design has a perspective: it’s modeled after a 30’s era boxing gym. Even the celebs are seen there often—Spike Lee, Lenny Kravitz, Pierre Niney—chatting with other guests between sets.
The gym itself is famous. People speak of it with reverence. For a lot of cool Parisians, it’s the main reason they’re even aware of the relatively new hotel (it only just opened in 2018). CNT focused on the gym when writing about the property, saying, “The subterranean sports club—channeling a ’30s boxing club—had a waiting list the minute it opened.” It still might.
Think of Equinox, Tracy Anderson, that goddamn Alo yacht… People care about where they workout. Maybe even more than where they eat and drink.
This is a real, monetizable shift. Hotels better listen up.
FCJ is not a hospitality consulting business…though maybe it should be. So here’s some free (for now) advice to hotels.
Invest in your gym. If it’s only accessible to guests, consider opening up memberships. We guarantee there will be demand in your town. With the cash this gives you, hire some coaches who can be there at all times. Advertise your classes, because now that they’re actually good, people will care. Organize events that build a community around the gym. Locals will start to tell their visiting guests to stay with you.
Luxury hospitality lives and dies on one thing: making every moment a guest touches feel good. Why wouldn’t you focus on making their workouts memorable when everyone has gotten health obsessed?
Get hot, interesting people in there through selective membership, get them into classes together, give them smoothies and actually good coffee afterwards. Imagine what a boost to the guest experience it would be to get to meet cool locals while getting your work-out in. You might even spark a love story from it. Look how often hotel bars are mentioned in love songs. Why not the hotel gym?
Gyms and bars have always been where people go to meet people. It’s the whole reason run clubs exist (just keeping it real over here while Matt and Adam are out). Get guests meeting—even falling in love—under your roof, and they’re guests for life.
So fix the gym. And if you know of a hotel gym that’s doing it right, let us know in the comments.
That’s all for today. If you’re into this kind of thing, give it a heart so others know it’s worth a read. And, as always, smooth skies to the lot of you!
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