The wellness industry is booming. Capital investment is being considered for Weltech as one of the tools to take advantage of this growth, but significant ROI is also expected. (Seen here is a hydrotherapy device manufactured by JK Group GmbH).

By Larry Mogelonski and Adam Mogelonski – March 9, 2024

Every industry has its own terminology and abbreviations. For a hotel technician, this means monitoring his PMS, CRS, POS, IBE, CRM, BI, AI, ML, PCI, as well as financial KPIs such as GOPPAR, GSS, and CPOR. While useful as heuristics for discussing business challenges, over time, such technical details can become insidious to the point of limiting our understanding of concurrent trends in other industries. It may narrow your focus. Particularly for today's purposes, when hoteliers hear the word “technology” they may think of the aforementioned alphabet soup: spas (“spatech”), fitness (“fittech”), etc. ), there is a whole other parallel world of wellness technology. (“Weltech”) Just waiting for hotels to take notice.

Why do we notice? No matter what statistics you cite, the story is the same. The wellness industry is booming. Capital investment is being considered for Weltech as one of the tools to take advantage of this growth, but significant ROI is also expected.

To frame this story from a macro perspective before getting into the micro, what you need to know about this megatrend is that the rate of discoveries in medical research is becoming more complex (especially now with the help of artificial intelligence). This means that these discoveries about how to detect abnormalities in the body and how to improve them are increasing. Health is slowly but surely making its way into public spaces. This process is occurring not only through people of all ages and dispositions choosing healthier lifestyles, but also through entrepreneurs who are introducing new wellness products to serve this ever-growing wellness market. Masu.

With many of these new products and companies opting for direct-to-consumer business models, our homes are destined to become “high-tech health hubs.” The challenges facing hotels are straightforward. You will have the same expectations at your chosen accommodation as you would at home.

Manufactured by JK Group GmbH, the Wellsystem Wave Touch Hydrojet is designed to enhance relaxation for hotel guests.

It may be easy for brands and executives focused solely on the spa and spa tech space to dismiss this as a concern, but new trends, styles, and habits naturally but inevitably overtake old ones. Let's not forget the lifecycle of technology adoption that forces migration. Economies of scale and induced demand work their magic so that niches (avid spa-goers or wellness junkies) and luxury goods (early adopters with lots of disposable cash) dominate everything else. will be added to the category.

Despite having to contend with Weltech's booming market, the hospitality industry is already ridiculed as a technology laggard. In our opinion, that's unreasonable given the complexity of managing a live property's technology stack. But now, with the proliferation of sleek smart furniture and devices available in the home, hotels without a wellness strategy will fall further behind as consumers start voting with their wallets for health-conscious lodging brands. It will be.

Another important factor when thinking about how to incorporate WellTech into your hotel is how effortlessly these tools can be scaled. Some spa techs can be assembled in treatment rooms to provide a “set it and forget it” guest experience. Of course, there are wellness apps with minimal unit economics. There are also handheld or wearable devices that can be created as standard items for in-room brands or as upsells that can be rented.

So what kind of Welltech are consumers looking for? With technology permeating everything, the term “Welltech” is completely inclusive of: Masu.

  • D2C app: Offers a variety of health tracking, nutrition, mindfulness, and wellbeing features
  • Club management: On the B2B software side, it goes without saying that AI is being incorporated to increase the efficiency of staff and equipment, and systems are advancing to keep operations running smoothly.
  • cosmetics: Utilizing the latest research and technology in the purity, stability, and bioactivation of health-promoting ingredients, we produce high-quality serums, creams, and fragrances to develop the aromatherapy wellness niche market.
  • supplement: While it's still the wild west in terms of regulations and precision, new brands are emerging that emphasize superior manufacturing processes for the latest trendy longevity medicines.
  • Phototherapy device: Whether handheld, wearable or mounted, they perform a range from infrared and red light therapy to sad lamps and IoT circadian room lighting.
  • Water therapy machine: Although more applicable as a spa tech, it is still a consideration as part of a total sensory activation for a new wellness program.
  • Soundscape: An even more sensory experience that lets you run the gamut of carefully selected ambient music, from binaural beats to neuroacoustics
  • Biocompatible design: Based on the conceit that being in nature makes you feel good, hotels are increasingly incorporating living plants, living walls, and artificial or digital green spaces, all of which still require BOH maintenance and energy management systems. depends on.
  • All about fitness: This banner can include new types of machines, handheld fitness devices, muscle recovery products, and exercise tracking apps that enhance exercise in different ways.
  • Massage equipment: With some overlap with FitTech, you can have chairs, handheld massage guns, compression suits that promote lymphatic drainage, and even vibrating plates.
  • Sleep technology: It could be a cooling mattress, a bedside air purifier, a sound plate under the mattress, or a wearable device that monitors your sleep.
  • Body scan: Many personalized health recommendations can be derived by scanning your body, such as muscle imbalances, fat properties, bone density (DEXA), or movement mechanics.
  • diagnosis: Whether it's drawing blood for epigenetics and multi-cancer early detection (MCED) or assessing the gut microbiome from a stool sample, hotels can help introduce guests to the wonderful world of preventive health screenings. can play an important role.

This simple list should at least give you an idea of ​​how big the world of Welltec is. But no matter what device, app, or six-figure spa tech equipment you purchase, it all depends on your core hotel technology stack for effective commercialization.

Manufactured by Power Plate, this vibration technology device is designed to provide fitness solutions indoors, in gyms, and spas.

Technology questions to consider when improving your wellness strategy:

  1. How are you marketing and packaging these new amenities?
  2. Can these wellness activations be commercialized as pre-arrival upsell offers, on-premise purchases via hotel apps, or other stages of the guest journey?
  3. How do you leverage wellness offers to drive brand loyalty and repeat visits?
  4. On the operational side of handheld device rental, how do you manage inventory, shipping, cleaning, and attachments to guest folios?
  5. Are consumables such as supplements and cosmetics linked to your company's procurement system?
  6. Can your brand app function as a one-stop shop by integrating partnered wellness apps for frictionless guest access?
  7. How can you use existing market intelligence data feeds to identify increased consumption of wellness travel and categorize wellness as the first guest and wellness as the second guest?
  8. Can you map the ROI of your wellness investments through long-term total return metrics such as customer lifetime value?

As you can see from these eight questions, this new frontier for Weltech in hotels is still all about the core stack to make programming economically successful. We know that there are very lucrative opportunities out there for early adopters in this field, so we recommend starting by learning the terminology. It's not going to happen in a day because there's a huge amount of information in Welltech's glossary and the theory behind how all these devices and diagnostics work. Once you're familiar with it, you'll have a better understanding of what's expected from traditional hotel technology and be able to guide your technology investments to ensure the success of your wellness applications.

Together, Adam and Larry Mogelonski represent one of the world's most published writing teams in the hospitality field, with over a decade's worth of material available online. As a partner in Hotel Mogel His Consulting His Limited, a Toronto-based consulting firm, Larry focuses on asset management, sales and operations, and Adam specializes in hotel technology and marketing. Their experience spans real estate worldwide, from branded to independent, from luxury properties to boutique to select services. Their books include In Vino Veritas: A Guide for Hoteliers and Restaurateurs to Sell More Wine (2022), More Hotel Mogel (2020), The Hotel Mogel (2018), The Llama is Inn” has seven books. (2017), “Hotel Llama” (2015), “Llama Rules” (2013), “Are You an Ostrich or a Llama?” (2012). Larry can be contacted at: [email protected] or in adam [email protected] Discuss your hotel's business challenges or book a speaking engagement.

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