Measuring the Value of Wellness to a Hotel Brand


Skift Take

Every time you turn around these days, a major hotel company is announcing that it has hired a chief wellness officer. But will this wave of devotion to wellness be a phase or a long-lasting phenomenon? Look to the return on investment for that answer.

If a focus on wellness doesn't make money for a hotel brand, is it worth investing in? This was one of the provocative topics under discussion at the Global Wellness Summit, held earlier this month in Cesena, Italy. During the meeting, a group of high-ranking hotel executives came together for a panel called "Shaping the Future Business of Wellness and Well-being in Hospitality." Mia Kyricos, senior vice president and global head of well-being Hyatt Hotels, asked whether large hotel brands do customer-facing wellness well. Exhale's enterprises president Annbeth Eschbach—whose company Hyatt recently bought—said, "We are at a tipping point, and we can take this to the next step. It's starting to shift as people from our space [the wellness community] work in big hotel companies and contribute to ideati