Skift Take
Hotel companies are making big hiring moves to better position themselves in the wellness space. With so much momentum in the sector at the moment, this makes sense. How much investing in wellness actually adds up financially, though, is up for debate.
Long gone are the days when a hospitality group would declare its commitment to the health of its guests, then simply upgrade its hotels’ treadmills and be done with it. Now, major hotel companies are not only taking innovative approaches to wellness (like Hyatt’s acquisition of Exhale), they’re backing up the talk with strategic hires.
Case in point: AccorHotels just appointed Emlyn Brown as vice president, wellbeing for its luxury and upper upscale brands (he was most recently global design director at Resense Spas).
Hyatt also made a big hiring announcement: Mia Kyricos has joined the team as senior vice president, global head of wellbeing. She’s been tasked with integrating World of Hyatt members with Miraval and Exhale and shaping the brand’s global well-being strategy.
It’s hard to know for sure whether all these hirings will pay off. As discussed in our first story below, it’s difficult to measure how much of a return on investment hospitality groups gain from enhancing their well-being services. If wellness is baked into the design of the hotel and (literally) into the food it serves, how does a company measure its monetary va
