The leisure principle

The leisure offering in hotels used to consist of a small pool and couple of exercise bikes, but that is changing rapidly in a fitness-conscious age. Quality facilities are high on the list of demands for families and weekend breaks, while business guests increasingly expect somewhere to unwind at the end of the day.

According to a recent survey by Mintel, the health and fitness industry is worth £1.25b and has been growing by 81% over the past six years. Among the adult population, 14% use health clubs and a further 20% are actively planning to join one.

Much of this business is associated with hotels, although leisure is increasingly seen as a separate function. The big chains run branded companies, such as Hilton's LivingWell and Granada's Spirit Clubs: besides a decent-sized pool, such facilities typically offer a sauna, a well-equipped gym, aerobics, and a massage and beauty treatment centre.

Hilton recently decided to invest £70m in its LivingWell operation, which it acquired together with Stakis last year. The UK's largest health club operator, LivingWell runs 80 clubs, of which three-quarters are located in hotels. One area marked for expansion is resort hotels, particularly those with golf courses, so that non-playing guests have something to do while their partners are out on the greens.

"Any hotel without good facilities will be at a disadvantage, especially those situated in a leisure break environment," comments Stuart Brostick, managing director of LivingWell. As a former director of Stakis Hotels, Brostick sees the clubs as an increasingly important part of the hotel operation.

Because they are run as revenue-earning operations in their own right, the main aim is to increase local membership, Brostick stresses, rather than increase hotel occupancy. But hotels can obviously benefit from the association, he concedes.

"It is difficult to prove that a leisure club is why people go to a hotel, but I do think extending membership expands occupancy as well, so it is a win-win situation," he says.

Where hotel health clubs are likely to score is with the over-55-year-old market, an ideal membership profile, according to Dave Courteen, a director of Fitness Express, which operates 14 hotel-based health clubs under contract management.

"People in this age group do not consider themselves part of the traditional health club and may have more affinity with a local hotel where they already visit the bar and restaurant," he points out. "To join the hotel's own leisure club is less of a culture change for them."

Leisure clubs in De Vere's 19 hotels now have 20,000 members, of which locals make up around 70%. The group's 11 Village Leisure Hotels also have leisure clubs with a further 60,000 members.

One of its showcase clubs is at the De Vere Belfry in Warwickshire, a large leisure facility with 1,000 members.

"It is quite a prestigious club to be a member of. The spa element appeals particularly to conference and business groups - there is nothing better than a sauna for bonding," says De Vere's director of sales and marketing Bill Gosling.

Granada acquired a 46-unit health-club portfolio when it bought Forte, and has rebranded 16 of them as Spirit Clubs, the rest of the estate remaining as Forte Spa. According to head of operations Ann Brown, hotels are not largely involved in the running of the clubs, although there is some co-operation in presentation and marketing.

"If we are doing a corporate campaign we would ask Forte if they want to add to it and we often share initiatives such as voucher offers for weekend breaks," she says.

Brown adds that the most profitable clubs are those with the easiest access. That can be an issue where hotels are off the beaten track or lack good parking, which is often the case.

One of the reasons why leisure clubs tend to be managed separately is that they involve a different set of issues. That particularly applies to health and safety, since members and hotel guests are likely to be more vulnerable when they are swimming or lifting weights than when sipping cocktails in the bar.

Earlier this year the Health & Safety Executive produced new guidelines for hotel swimming pools that stipulate a maximum depth of 1.5m. Pools deeper than that should have a lifeguard in attendance at all times, it insists.

However, existing regulations limit lifeguards to 20 minutes on duty at a time, which means that hotels with deep pools would have to employ at least six full-time staff. Faced with a huge extra wages bill, Granada has opted instead to spend £400,000 filling in its older pools to the required depth.

Where leisure clubs are being built as revenue-earners in their own right, non-residents outnumber hotel guests by as much as four to one. But that ratio is reversed where the aim is to provide the hotel with an add-on facility.

For instance, Granada's Heritage brand, which includes 49 upmarket hotels in historic and countryside locations, expects up to 80% of its health club business to come from its guests.

"More and more when people go away they want to be pampered," says managing director Guy Crawford. Guests now expect greater variety, with several exotic types of massage on offer instead of just one, and "beauty" treatments are increasingly available for men.

Heritage plans to trial spa facilities of different sizes in its hotels in Bath, Helmsley in Yorkshire, and Ullswater in the Lake District. But getting planning permission in its listed buildings is a sticking point.

"People want these facilities to be not only aesthetically appealing but to reflect the world as being more environmentally conscious," Crawford says.

One problem for hotels is that their leisure facilities are still thought of as being extremely basic in comparison with independent gyms. "At Fitness Express, when we market our club we focus on getting people to visit so they can see how far removed we are from their preconceptions," Courteen says.

But any doubts about hotels' commitment to change should soon disappear, as they rush to meet their guests' leisure expectations as well as profit from a lucrative and growing outside market.

FACTS

Hotels and leisure clubs:

LivingWell (Hilton Group)

Tel: 0800 136636

75 clubs ( 51 hotel, 24 stand alone) - 98,000 members

De Vere Hotels and Leisure

Tel: 01925 232244

30 hotel clubs - 62,000 members

Forte Hotels

Tel: 020 7301 2000

47 Spirit Clubs - 45,000 members

Jarvis Hotels

Tel: 0845 606 0845

18 Sebastian Coe Health Clubs - 18,000 members

Queens Moat Houses Hotels

Tel: 01708 730522

31 Club Moativation Health and Fitness Clubs - 18,000 members

Golf as a hotel attraction

The growing popularity of golf in recent years has made the sport an important attraction for hotels. Golf is available at 12 of De Vere's hotels, led by the Belfry, whose Brabazon course regularly puts on international tournaments such as the prestigious Ryder Cup.

Others in the group include Belton Woods in Lincolnshire, Cameron House on Loch Lomond, which has a nine-hole course, and Dunston Hall in Norwich.

De Vere wants to avoid the tag of "golf hotels", preferring them to be seen as hotels that offer the sport as an extra facility. Besides tournaments and local membership, revenue can also be won from offering corporate golf days, with the attraction of being on a course used by top players.

"Some of our conferences come to us specifically because of the golf, which they play in the afternoon after business sessions in the morning," says De Vere's director of sales and marketing Bill Gosling.

Golf is also an important attraction in the short leisure break market.

One effect of running a golf course is to create a special ambience, making the hotel a natural choice for weddings and similar functions.

That's the case in De Vere's Mottram Hall in Cheshire, for instance, where guests can enjoy stunning scenery in the long drive to the door.

Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 10-16 August 2000