How to encourage healthy living on the road
We often hear about how important fitness is—how you should eat right, get 150 minutes of exercise per week, and cut down on alcohol—but how does one do that when traveling once, twice, or even three times a month? It doesn’t help when the host property treats the fitness center as an afterthought—a room never to be stepped into, looked at or spoken about.
Fortunately, how hotels treat their fitness centers is looking more in shape. No longer a minor amenity, they’re now a feature that hotels are putting serious money into, replete with updated equipment on par with standalone gyms, personal trainers and fitness programs to engage with.
“This is going to be the next generation of fitness,” says Jennifer Lynn, Fontainebleau Las Vegas’ director of spa and wellness. “Personally and professionally, many of us have started paying a little bit more attention to our own health.” Fontainebleau Las Vegas is one property that has paid a noticeable amount of attention to its fitness center, which is a full 13,000 sq. ft., a bountiful size not typically found in hotels.
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Lynn says the team has kept a thumb on the pulse of things such as up-to-date gym equipment, and how best to lay out the gym—”It was really about starting with dedicating a significant amount of space that had natural, healing sunlight”—to make sure it would be a gym that welcomed everyone.
“It’s not just a personal trainer’s gym,” she says. “In those, you need somebody that’s going to guide you through each piece of equipment, because it might be unusual. Here, we have a hybrid; we have those advanced pieces, but we also have a lot of pieces where even if you are working out regularly on your own, you can still come in and get a great workout.”
The Pandemic Did It
David T. Stevens is a 20-year corporate event planner and cofounder of Olympian Meeting, a company specializing in wellness for meetings and events, who regularly checks out the fitness centers. He’s noticed this increased attention being paid to them–a change, he says, that was sparked by the pandemic. Before, Stevens says fitness centers were just “nice to have.” “Up until the pandemic, people didn’t really care about it unless your brand was aligned with it,” he says. “I never really saw events and wellness intersecting.”
Stevens had an early look at this intersection when he began working at 24 Hour Fitness’ headquarters in 2013. “All of our meetings and events started with a workout,” he says. “They weren’t mandatory, but if you didn’t show up, you were going to hear about it. The food always had to be intentional.” Stevens says his registration forms would ask bodybuilding-related questions (“Are you on a cut?” “Are you on a bulk?”), as these were the questions in line with the brand.
In the rest of the meetings-sphere, though, things were the same as always.
“Everyone was still going to industry conferences with jam-packed agendas, getting drunk, not getting any sleep and just trauma-bonding the next morning because everyone’s hung over and commiserating, asking, ‘Where are the breakfast burritos?’”
When the pandemic hit, many people began to reprioritize, Stevens says. “People were like, ‘Oh, what have I been doing with my life? I’m very comfortable being at home. Do I really want to leave and go to this event?’ People started thinking about wellness very differently because they had enough time to sit and come to the realization that they were living unsustainable lifestyles.”
“Before the pandemic, everyone was still going to industry conferences with jam-packed agendas, getting drunk, not getting any sleep and just trauma-bonding the next morning because everyone’s hung over and commiserating, asking, ‘Where are the breakfast burritos?’”
Although expedited by the pandemic, Alice Land, director of sales and marketing for JW Marriott Miami Turnberry Resort & Spa, who has been working with Marriott for 15 years, began to see increased interest even before then. “The interest in wellness and fitness offerings is very high, and in some cases among the top priorities that companies today factor in when choosing a corporate destination,” she says. “The demand has increased steadily over the past decade and only continues to increase.”
JW Marriott Miami Turnberry is home to a 3,600-square-foot fitness center. In addition, the property also features 50 group fitness classes per week, including spin classes, Zumba, body sculpting and more.
Fitness Centers’ Impact on Motivation
The studies and tests that support physical activities’ positive impact on anxiety and depression are immense and “wonderfully redundant,” Stevens says. He believes in spreading the word about hotel gyms so much that he’s started creating one-minute gym reviews on his social media accounts, reviewing the best of the best as well as those that could use a little more love—and it’s making an impact. He says people have commented they wouldn’t have stayed at a hotel without his positive gym review.
“Hotel gym reviews are like an underground movement that’s moving its way into the main spotlight,” he says. “It used to be mostly just gym rats. They want to know what kind of equipment they have. I had one guy reply, ‘The pictures on the website were terrible. Thank you for your video. This is what I needed to know. I’m staying at this hotel now.’ He saw their equipment, and it was what he needed to maintain his lifestyle. Isn’t that what hospitality is supposed to be?”
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Gym-goers who have built up a routine over many years may find it easier to work out in a run-down gym, but it’s those who are just beginning down the fitness path where the quality of the gym really matters. “If you’re on that cusp of motivation, and you get down to the gym, and it’s in the basement, it’s dingy, and it’s not looked after, you’re going to leave,” Stevens continues. “If you leave, maybe that’s what breaks you because consistency is the key to maintaining these habits. Then you’re at the conference for three days, you don’t use the gym, you get home, you’re tired, you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m going to be so sore when I work out, maybe I’ll just wait another day.’ That’s how you downward spiral. The gym can motivate people, or it can demotivate people.”
Or it can lead you to explore wellness amenities you don’t have at home. For instance, Stevens loves using a cold plunge when he’s away. “I will go out of my way and set my alarm earlier so I can go use it,” he says.
There are also amenities like therapy steam rooms and Himalayan salt rooms, which JW Marriott Miami Turnberry offers in its three-step wellness circuit, along with the cold plunge. “Because fitness and wellness are such a high priority for today’s travelers, it is imperative for a resort or destination to provide the most up-to-date, diverse, cutting-edge equipment and classes,” Land says. “When you provide a modern, clean, welcoming and inclusive environment where people feel comfortable and motivated, it absolutely makes a difference.”
For planners considering the fitness center when sourcing their next event location, Stevens recommends looking out for a few specific features.
“A big thing is capacity. Think about how big it is,” he says. “Think about how much equipment they have because inevitably, you’re going to have a subset of your group that’s going to want to do their own thing and just go work out. The other is what kind of outdoor or indoor open spaces do they have that you could leverage to bring in an instructor or something of that nature for group workouts.”
And not only does the fitness center itself have a huge impact on motivation, so does whether the person is working out alone or with others. Stevens referenced the Lululemon Global Wellbeing Report 2024, which found that 89% of its 16,000 respondents felt they were pursuing their wellness journey alone.
The report also found that people feel an increase in well-being when they feel a sense of belonging while working out with others (21%) and when taking group fitness classes (15%); 18% felt a similar increase in well-being when they spent time outdoors with others. People also felt a 23% increase in well-being when using physical activity as an opportunity to socialize. “The stats are there, and the data supports the fact that fitness isn’t something that is a nice-to-have. It’s something that is good for your conference,” he says.
Anecdotally, Lynn says guests she interacts with say Fontainebleau’s fitness center is one of the standout areas on the property. “It’s about the equipment, but it’s also about the service experience that they have in that space…. For the diversity of the guests that come to our property, a meeting or conference attendee, a casino customer or just the leisure guest, the fitness center is an absolute essential part of that.”
Where to Start with Fitness Inclusion
It can be difficult to know where to fit in fitness. Around main and breakout sessions, F&B, off-site activities? Stevens says it starts at registration.
“The beauty of registration is you can ask anything you want, and you don’t have to make the question mandatory,” he says, suggesting something like, “‘We’re considering offering some group workouts at the event. Please list the top three you like.’ All you need is an instructor and some mats; people will come and do what they do. Those people will be super into it, and they’ll meet other people they have something in common with. You can ask this spectrum of things and find out what people are into, and it doesn’t cost you anything. You’ll then start to understand what’s important to people. Then, when you go into next year’s sourcing, you know what to ask for because you’ve actually asked people.”
Lynn’s understanding of how to engage with event planners began with a moment of clarity. “I had this ‘aha’ moment. You have these really busy meeting planners that know they want to do some kind of activation, and then you’ve got us as operators.” Through all the talk about what to include in programs, she realized something: “We’re not always speaking the same language,” she says, adding that the team had to take a step back and redevelop the group sales brochure to give meeting planners a better look at what their options are.
“It isn’t just chair yoga, morning yoga, a sunrise run, or those kind of things,” Lynn says. “Those are certainly popular, and they can come out of the gates asking for those, but what we do is help take it to the next level. With some of the options we do have, we focus more on the wellness side of things. We have done breathwork classes, we’ve done yoga and then included a nutritional talk with it, and then ended with a smoothie-making demo.”
Lynn says they always try to help attendees take knowledge home with them. Sometimes, they also include gifts to keep fitness in mind beyond the event. “There might be foam rollers, depending on the budget. We use Rad tools that are helpful for personal recovery, whether they’re balls or the muscle flushing kits.”
Lastly, Land suggests making it fun. “When there is an element of fun, it is much easier for groups to be inclusive,” she says. “We offer experiences that they may not necessarily have access to at home or might not think to book for themselves.” One experience she highlights is Water Park After Dark, an after-hours experience at the property’s Today Cove Waterpark that includes floating yoga, cryotherapy, oxygen stations and massages.
And that’s certainly another world away from squats and a bench press.
This article appears in the March 2025 issue. You can subscribe to the magazine here.
