Emlyn Brown - Accor & The Future of Wellness Experiences

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[00:02:07] All right, we are live.

[00:02:08] Emlyn Brown, welcome to The Future of Fitness, my friend.

[00:02:11] Thank you, Eric.

[00:02:12] Great to be here.

[00:02:12] Thanks for having me on.

[00:02:14] Yeah, it's going to be really, really good.

[00:02:16] I, you know, just in all of our conversations, our meetings in the hallways at various events, and, you know, I was joking with you.

[00:02:23] I'm like, okay, I guess we have to give Joe Cannon from Piper Ice some credit for making sure that we get connected and doing all that.

[00:02:31] So there you go, Joe.

[00:02:32] There's your moment in the spotlight.

[00:02:34] Thank you, Joe, for the connection to Eric.

[00:02:36] Yeah, he's Mr. Fix It when he comes down to fitness.

[00:02:38] He's a connector, as we say, in our business, right?

[00:02:40] Yeah.

[00:02:41] And I'll be seeing him very soon.

[00:02:42] So yeah, it's great to be here.

[00:02:43] It's great to talk about fitness and exercise, which is a really passionate topic for me, but also for what we're doing within hospitality and I think maybe hopefully new news for your listeners and what we're doing within hotels.

[00:02:55] Yeah, you have a very, very valuable and high level perspective on what's going on globally in the world of wellness.

[00:03:02] And that's what I want to kind of extract out of you through this interview.

[00:03:05] And I didn't realize really until our last conversation about a month ago before we recorded here was how large your company is and how much you oversee globally.

[00:03:16] So let's just, you know, set the table really quick here.

[00:03:19] Like give us insights into, you know, at core what you guys do and in your role because you have a lot of responsibility.

[00:03:25] Yeah, or not overseas the case may be because the scale is so big, but no, at core is obviously we're a French based hospitality group.

[00:03:32] We're the fifth largest hospitality group in the world.

[00:03:35] We have a 5,600 hotels.

[00:03:36] We're now at 47, maybe nearly 48 brands across that.

[00:03:41] And we range from, you know, economy, some driven hotels like Ibis all the way through to mid-scale with people like Novatel.

[00:03:50] Premium hotels at Pullman and Swiss Hotel.

[00:03:52] And then we get into the luxury side of things with our raffles and our Fairmont brand, which I think your American listeners will know well from Canada in the United States.

[00:04:00] We have trains with Orient Express.

[00:04:02] We have boats being built.

[00:04:03] We also have a wonderful lifestyle division, which is a collection of 16 lifestyle brands.

[00:04:09] And you might know Delano, Mondrian, SLS in the United States, which were the SBE brands we bought about three years ago and are now scaling globally.

[00:04:17] So we were a very, very large company over 350,000 employees globally.

[00:04:22] And on the spa and wellness side, naturally with that scale, probably touching about over a thousand to 1,100 fitness facilities.

[00:04:29] And they can range from your 50 square meters or 25 square meters in a box to 5,000 square meter big box clubs in Claremont in Berkeley.

[00:04:37] Right?

[00:04:38] So a real big range of exercise movement.

[00:04:40] And then about 600 spas globally, which go from your ultra luxury raffles in London, the old war office, where a wonderful location in Century Plaza in Fairmont, down to more smaller scale operations.

[00:04:53] And in this as well, a mixture of things like destination wellbeing and resort based wellbeing and so on.

[00:04:58] I've been with the company six years and my role as SVP of design and development and strategies really to help guide and support the brands in the direction where we're going on a bigger picture.

[00:05:09] Also have a responsibility for design and development.

[00:05:11] So really working a lot with architects, designers, conceptualizing and creating concepts and also construction for our hotels and how we weave or bring fitness and wellbeing into those spaces.

[00:05:24] And that's ostensibly where I play the major role in allowing our operational teams, the remit and the, shall we say, the inspiration to then drive that towards performance.

[00:05:35] And our customers and our guests to make them feel, you know, that they're getting a wonderful wellbeing experience when they're on our properties.

[00:05:42] Well, it's just taking a much more central role in hotels.

[00:05:46] We have four out of five of our guests that are taking a step every day to improve the health and wellbeing across all of our different brands.

[00:05:53] And that means 80% of our customers are looking for a wellness type solution.

[00:05:57] The higher luxury scale you go, the more they're seeking that.

[00:06:00] And therefore the sophistication we need to be deploying and bringing to our guests has really accelerated the last 10 years.

[00:06:05] And my role is to hopefully support that journey and help our team members provide that experience for our guests.

[00:06:12] Yeah. Amazing. There's a lot of terms, you know, that we use in the industry.

[00:06:17] I want to kind of clarify for the sake of this conversation, right?

[00:06:20] So I've seen you kind of oscillate between wellness and wellbeing, you know, so maybe like define in your terms, like what is the definition of wellness?

[00:06:29] What is the definition of wellbeing?

[00:06:31] And then after that, maybe we can talk about how fitness kind of fits into that, that, that realm.

[00:06:37] It's a good question.

[00:06:39] But one that most people don't really try and they jump between both.

[00:06:43] Right. And so when I first started with Accor, we were creating our strategic platform, which was, well, how am I going to get my arms around this, this machine?

[00:06:50] This old, this will tanker of a business and how do we, do we move it forward?

[00:06:54] And one of the ways to take a step back and be, and be very clear about your semantics about the words that you use.

[00:07:00] And so we had the wellness, the wellbeing, the wellbeing with a hyphen, wellbeing without the hyphen, you know, for our American cousins, right?

[00:07:06] Big discussions.

[00:07:07] And essentially the anytime you want to go back about words is go look at the dictionary and see what they actually mean, right?

[00:07:13] Most people just don't do, you know, and wellness for us is actions and activities.

[00:07:18] They're the things that you do every day.

[00:07:19] They're your movement, your 10,000 steps, your, your, your plant-based food, your nutritional elements, your yoga, your headstand, whatever ever floats your boat from a wellness, from a wellbeing, wellness perspective, right?

[00:07:30] How you're applying that action.

[00:07:32] So wellness addresses actions.

[00:07:34] Wellbeing is outcome, right?

[00:07:35] So that's what I've said.

[00:07:36] Your overall wellbeing is then supported by, let's call it the compound interest of these things added together, create a state of wellbeing.

[00:07:43] It's just sort of Maslow's hierarchy of human needs.

[00:07:46] The top part is wellbeing and below that is your different strata of wellness activity, movement, nutrition, mindfulness, practice, the recovery, whatever it would be in order to, to achieve an idea of wellbeing.

[00:07:59] And that's how we define it within our core.

[00:08:01] That's how we discuss it.

[00:08:02] And we then created within our team, what we call the six pillars of wellbeing, which is how we approach creating a strategy or creating a platform for delivering wellbeing to our guests through wellness activities.

[00:08:14] And they were fitness and movement, mindfulness practice, how we design our hotels, how we leverage our spas to be successful.

[00:08:22] What we're also doing about things like digital, so balanced digital delivery to our guests and using that in a positive way.

[00:08:29] And naturally nutrition, right?

[00:08:32] So those six areas and the six pillars of our, well, a wellness philosophy that we then deploy within, within our, our brands.

[00:08:39] And that allows us to create a very strong platform to say, look, we have consistency in our approach.

[00:08:44] When we go into a brand or work with a brand or create a concept for a hotel, we're using those six pillars as a way to think about that.

[00:08:52] And then we sort of turn the volume up or down on those pillars, depending on the brand, the consumer, the price point, how it would be.

[00:09:00] You know, so a Fairmont has the same, says it has the six pillars applied to it, but it's very, very active in the fitness space and recreational space and the outdoor space and very active in the nutrition space.

[00:09:10] Our raffles brand has got a particular focus on digital and recovery and use of tech and also on mindfulness.

[00:09:17] Our Pullman brand was all about fitness.

[00:09:20] And so in the same way that music notes are the same, we can play many, many songs with the eight or 10 notes we have available to us around the world.

[00:09:28] And the same applies to deploying wellness and wellbeing strategies.

[00:09:31] So that's how we, we approached it.

[00:09:33] And fitness has become a significant part of that delivery, right?

[00:09:38] For the simple reason or two or three simple reasons for us.

[00:09:42] One is probably the strongest way other than nutrition, because everyone eats in a hotel, right?

[00:09:47] Think about it.

[00:09:48] It's probably the second strongest way of delivering well wellness or wellbeing to a broad customer base, because we know that about 20 to 23% of our guests on the property are using fitness or exercising while on property, which is a pretty high percentage.

[00:10:02] And the higher up again, luxury scale you go higher that increase in percentage of the cost.

[00:10:08] So you want to really meet the needs of wellness activity or activation in the hotel for a guest.

[00:10:13] You can do it through food and you can do it through movement, right?

[00:10:17] In big picture terms.

[00:10:18] Okay.

[00:10:19] And then secondly, we're seeing a demographic change within our industry where millennial, particularly millennial and the younger Gen Z generation is now moving into the luxury purchasing landscape for hotels.

[00:10:31] Okay.

[00:10:32] And so the older generation, my parents' generation is moving away from that.

[00:10:37] And there's a new generation is coming through.

[00:10:39] What do they bring?

[00:10:40] They bring a sophisticated and high propensity for wellness with a particular focus on movement.

[00:10:48] When we know that 45%, my last figures I saw, maybe you can help with that, Eric, of under 30s of members of clubs in the United States, that's a very, very powerful figure.

[00:10:58] Right?

[00:10:58] And so when you're thinking five, six years ahead about what we're going to do with the hotel, you better be thinking, I think, about that generation coming into a property and what their needs are and what their luxury looks like.

[00:11:09] Right?

[00:11:10] I think that luxury looks a lot different than it does 10, 15 years ago.

[00:11:15] And it will be fitness and movement based and nutrition based.

[00:11:19] And that's going to be a seismic shift, I think, for our industry.

[00:11:23] Yeah.

[00:11:23] Amazing.

[00:11:24] Great recap, man.

[00:11:25] And, you know, I've been talking about this a lot now or securely in Q4 of 2024 is I just feel like our industry, whether we know it consciously or subconsciously is going through a rebrand.

[00:11:35] And when I say fitness, and when I'm talking about industry, I mean fitness, like been around this industry long enough to see a couple of phases of it.

[00:11:42] And of course, when I was younger, I was reading on the muscle magazines, bodybuilding, right?

[00:11:47] Doing that kind of stuff.

[00:11:48] And then, you know, I've just seen it evolve, but we're definitely seem to be rebranding into whatever you want to call it, whether it's preventative health, wellness, longevity, like into this kind of forefront into the first stages of healthcare, you know?

[00:12:03] And I think that's really cool.

[00:12:05] It's great.

[00:12:06] You know, I've been around since the early nineties.

[00:12:08] I started my career, firstly working within sport and then working within health club industry right at the very beginning, 1995, home space, which you may not know in the United States, but it was a very early big box luxury health club chain in the, in the United Kingdom in Europe.

[00:12:24] And we were doing, you know, the, the, all the Les Mills stuff and doing the training and ACSM and all different things and delivering great club experiences.

[00:12:31] And my background is from that where you had, you know, when you're selling a membership, so there was a completely alien, the alien idea to be a member of a club and to exercise.

[00:12:41] So at least it was like three to 4%, you know, penetration to, to population.

[00:12:45] Right.

[00:12:46] And so then I saw budget clubs come on high value, low price and the whole development come up.

[00:12:50] Then I was part of the spa industry in the hotel business.

[00:12:54] It was a natural affinity to my very, very, very close to your own exercise and movement.

[00:12:58] I think you are right.

[00:12:59] I think it's a really exciting time to be in the fitness wellness profession whereby I think what's happening is Eric, is that we've now got this understanding.

[00:13:11] It's prevention, not cure.

[00:13:13] Right.

[00:13:13] And this idea of preventative prevention, not cure has really seeped through into our consumer understanding.

[00:13:22] Okay.

[00:13:23] 20 years ago, it was like, fix me.

[00:13:25] Right.

[00:13:26] And medical professionals probably didn't understand musculoskeletal issues to a certain degree or weren't really understanding maybe more holistic practices or how to recover what all that meant.

[00:13:37] And there's been a big change on that side of things.

[00:13:40] Right.

[00:13:40] But a massive change in the consumer side of things, which is in some of the standards of prevention, not cure.

[00:13:46] You need to go out there and be preventative in terms of your health and well-being and no longer relying on having things fixed fundamentally.

[00:13:55] And so not only is it the younger generation adopting that, it's a lot of other members of our populace that we start to understand that.

[00:14:02] Other factors that come into play that are really, I think, unique for us right now, I'd say is the push and the pull factors of this.

[00:14:10] The pull is this attraction, this social media of certain degrees of body, you know, beautiful and attractiveness and also the aspiration of wealth, right?

[00:14:21] The idea that health is wealth and being healthy is a projection of your wealth, shall we say.

[00:14:27] You know, you could say that health is a new herd couture, which is a line I used to the help of an health care manager called Throats, right?

[00:14:35] You know, at the same time, the push factors, the idea of fear, stress, environmental stress, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:14:41] That's a very powerful dynamic in any industry that I don't see happening in a lot of other industries.

[00:14:46] So, yeah, I agree.

[00:14:48] And then now it's the blurring.

[00:14:49] It's the understanding.

[00:14:50] It's not just about being fit.

[00:14:52] It's about recovery.

[00:14:53] It's not about being fit.

[00:14:54] It's how you fuel your body.

[00:14:55] In fact, fueling your body is more important than probably the fitness and then the recovery.

[00:14:59] The access to information we've got through social media, rightly or wrongly, and hopefully we'll touch on some of the rights and the wrongs of that later on, is a very, very exciting time to be a professional in this business, right?

[00:15:12] And I think that, yeah, it's been 25, 30 years coming for some of us, right?

[00:15:16] But I don't think we could be in a better industry right now than in this well-being industry that is as much broader now than just siloed fitness and movement and exercise and so on.

[00:15:28] Yeah.

[00:15:28] Yeah, I think you said that in a very articulate way, and it's something that I've felt and seen.

[00:15:34] I just haven't really put it into words like that.

[00:15:36] I mean, even in my medium of podcasting, you have this mass hunger from consumers to learn more about their health.

[00:15:43] I mean, I call it the Huberman effect, right?

[00:15:44] And then everyone else just kind of spurred through that category of evolution of like, everyone wants to know.

[00:15:50] And I was joking, I was at a hot springs for my wife and I had our anniversary or sorry, it was his birthday.

[00:15:55] And we went to these hot springs and there was a cold plunge and then the hot spring, beautiful place.

[00:16:01] And every time I got into the cold plunge, somebody was there lecturing about the benefits of cold plunge.

[00:16:08] Someone who obviously listened to Huberman or Rogan or Gabby Lyon, whatever.

[00:16:13] Like you could tell it was just so funny to me.

[00:16:14] Like that never happened five years ago.

[00:16:16] So it's that pull, but then you're right.

[00:16:19] People, you know, during the pandemic and maybe they're starting to see like a lot of baby boomers start to generate into like their older years.

[00:16:26] And it's not pretty for a lot of them, right?

[00:16:28] It's a lot of decade of sickness and unhealth.

[00:16:31] So there's a lot of fear too.

[00:16:32] So it's, it's this nice little, not nice.

[00:16:35] It's just this reality of the situation is people are really starting to pay more attention, especially the younger generations, which I think is really cool.

[00:16:41] And I think there's wearable technology plays a role in that too.

[00:16:43] People are starting to see their sleep data, their HRV, what a couple of drinks does to that.

[00:16:48] And the younger generations don't drink as much, which is, uh, which is really interesting to me.

[00:16:54] No, it's, that's, you know, I think it's the gamification of your lifestyle, right?

[00:16:59] Yeah.

[00:16:59] I mean, particularly on the sleep one, I mean, you, I mean, 20 years ago, about how many, how many pints or whatever you would call it in America, you may have drunk.

[00:17:06] And that's like how many hours of sleep you got, what your WUTS score was, right?

[00:17:09] This is the conversations that younger people are having.

[00:17:12] You know, we're seeing significant shift into, that's what it's so curious or even fully T total because of the impact of alcohol on you physically or people taking breaks from alcohol.

[00:17:24] So October has just took, just took place.

[00:17:27] January is now, you know, increasing again in our industry, significant change because we're now moving from, you know,

[00:17:35] alcohol driven bars to mixology.

[00:17:38] That's not involving any alcohol or zero alcohol or low alcohol content.

[00:17:42] Looking at aptitude and based drinks with a variety of different collagens and supports inside them is now moving, you know,

[00:17:49] into hospitals and into hotels and being demanded by our guests.

[00:17:53] Right.

[00:17:53] And so the mini bar is changing.

[00:17:55] The restaurant is changing.

[00:17:57] The bar is going to change fundamentally, still the social element, but it's done in a different way.

[00:18:03] And yes, I think that the tech piece, the access to data that you have, your own personal data is another form, you know,

[00:18:09] and it's a little dopamine rush to a certain degree, but it's also a warning sign.

[00:18:14] Right.

[00:18:14] But it's also a great way of tracking, you know, your performance and your steps towards improvement.

[00:18:21] Right.

[00:18:22] Right.

[00:18:22] Which I think everyone now, you know, is, is, is taking very, very seriously.

[00:18:26] I think back to the point is, is that it's the ownership of health.

[00:18:30] And that is the fundamental, fundamental thing.

[00:18:33] You've got to own your own health and own your own wellbeing.

[00:18:36] We're living longer.

[00:18:38] Longevity is, we want to be living well for longer.

[00:18:41] Right.

[00:18:41] And we want to be enjoying those years.

[00:18:43] And I think that's, that's the, that's definitely the understanding that's driving the younger generation to want to be fit and to be well.

[00:18:49] You know?

[00:18:50] Yeah.

[00:18:51] Yeah.

[00:18:51] Well said.

[00:18:52] So you've been out this year doing a lot of talking, beating the drum on a couple of topics, you know, that you think are really important for the industry and for, and for what you do as well.

[00:19:00] So maybe give us, you know, if you could start to summarize some of the major talking points you've had in 2024, like what, what are some of the big ones that you would want to get across to our audience?

[00:19:10] Well, I think that, you know, we've been talking specifically and looking to beat the drum.

[00:19:14] Um, I think because our core is a, is a, an innovator and a leader when it comes down to developing wellbeing for our guests.

[00:19:23] Um, and we want to be, uh, known, known as that we want, we understand very clearly that consumers demand that and therefore driving wellness and wellbeing activity into our properties is vitally important.

[00:19:33] And I have incredible support from our senior C-suite management all the way through the organization where we decided to understand how important this is for our, for our guests.

[00:19:43] You know?

[00:19:44] I think three or four things we could probably talk about that I think are significant shifts for the industry and for us, right?

[00:19:51] I think the first one is within hospitality, which is interesting for your, for yourself and for the listeners is that the major change in how we're thinking about hotels and how we develop hotels.

[00:20:01] All right.

[00:20:02] And previously 25, 30 years ago, you know, it's all about heads on beds and room profit and room profitability and that rooms made profit.

[00:20:09] Okay.

[00:20:10] So you'd be in a development meeting and you'd have, you know, 12,000 square meters of space and GFA.

[00:20:16] And the big question is how many rooms can we get in there?

[00:20:19] Okay.

[00:20:19] And we get all the rooms in as many rooms as we possibly can.

[00:20:22] And then we are looking to find space for restaurants and back of house and support services and get that in.

[00:20:28] And then we're like, oh, no, we need a gym.

[00:20:31] Oh, where should we put that?

[00:20:31] I'll put the gym at B2 next to, you know, the waste compact or B, I'm exaggerating to certainly.

[00:20:37] Oh yeah.

[00:20:37] Or B3 level, tucked away, no sunlight next to the car park.

[00:20:42] That's great.

[00:20:43] You know, tick box, 150 square meters, 500 hotel, you know, that's changing.

[00:20:49] It's changing because hotels are being built for living, not for sleeping now.

[00:20:54] And it's a huge shift, right?

[00:20:56] Driven by, I think, a lot of the impact of our lifestyle, you know, hotels and what, how they work and what they do.

[00:21:02] So hotels are living and lots for sleeping or sleeping being an app, being an amenity and living being the product is a big change.

[00:21:10] With that is how you talk about hotel design, development, how you're creating animated lobby experiences, how you're creating restaurants and bars that are linked to community.

[00:21:20] We want our hotels to be full with people from the local community.

[00:21:23] Why?

[00:21:23] Because A, it's a great revenue stream.

[00:21:25] B, it attracts more hotel guests when they come into a buzzing, local, localized property and hotel.

[00:21:32] Right?

[00:21:32] So that's probably the one big shift.

[00:21:34] Where does well-being come into that?

[00:21:36] Well, nothing more social than a wellness experience, right?

[00:21:40] Nothing more social than a health club experience.

[00:21:42] And so what we're seeing, what we're planning in ACOR is bringing our health clubs and fitness center stage, expanding the size of it, combining the natural amenities of a hotel.

[00:21:53] So pool, changing rooms, spa, fitness.

[00:21:56] And usually we'll sort of spread all over the hotel.

[00:21:59] You can spa be on the sixth floor, fitness is on the third floor, pools on the other area.

[00:22:03] Let's bring it together.

[00:22:05] Let's combine that 1,700, 17, well, 13,000 square feet for the Americans, 1,700 square meters for us to here in Europe and turn into a club.

[00:22:15] Because you're going to build it anyway, right?

[00:22:16] So why not build it to create community, to create club debate, to create income from membership, which is both predictable and sustainable.

[00:22:24] And has a great strong wash down to GOP and EBITDA.

[00:22:28] So that's probably the first change I would say that we're witnessing with that comes opportunities for clubs, wellness clubs, spa and fitness, movement, all combined into one space.

[00:22:40] And I think a great example of that is probably how we approached our London property for Old War office, which is ultra luxury hotel.

[00:22:46] But it has 23,000 square feet of wellness and fitness, including a great partnership with Guerlain, who's a luxury spa provider, but also Pillar Wellbeing, who's driving our nutrition movement and recovery for a high net worth membership.

[00:23:01] You know, and it's probably one that maybe the listeners want to look at.

[00:23:03] They can take an understanding.

[00:23:05] That's, I think, the direction that's very, very interesting for us from a hospitality point of view.

[00:23:11] And what was that one again?

[00:23:11] That's the London Old War office.

[00:23:14] It's a raffles property we opened a year ago.

[00:23:16] It's probably one of our sort of leading hotel openings of the last five to 10 years.

[00:23:21] Ultra luxury hotel in London.

[00:23:23] London, I think like New York, London's become a very, very hotbed of luxury well-being, right from carriages to the Old War office, to the original Manor Rientel,

[00:23:33] to be opening the Surin Club with Huberman and Tracy Anderson coming in there, the first Tracy Anderson Club outside of America in central London.

[00:23:43] It's a really competitive luxury lifestyle market there for wellness, right?

[00:23:46] In the same way that I think that New York is now the LA of wellness and fitness, right, in terms of innovation and concepts that are going on.

[00:23:54] So, yeah, London's a competitive market for well-being, for sure.

[00:23:58] Yeah.

[00:23:59] You know, whenever I think about you and your job, Emlyn, I always think about this guy probably stays in the nicest hotel rooms whenever he travels.

[00:24:06] You'd be surprised.

[00:24:07] No.

[00:24:08] No.

[00:24:09] I'm not going to sit here saying that things are difficult.

[00:24:12] I try and mix where we stay.

[00:24:14] I'll be very honest.

[00:24:15] I'm trying to get this across.

[00:24:16] If my boss hears this and she understands I'm doing that, but I try and mix where we stay because sometimes there's no worries about that.

[00:24:23] But we're very fortunate to stay in some incredible properties.

[00:24:26] I was just at the raffles in London last week.

[00:24:29] I was at the raffles in Cilapur the week before.

[00:24:30] So, you got me on a good week, right?

[00:24:32] Yeah.

[00:24:33] But at the same time, it's important to experience all of our brands.

[00:24:35] And so, I try and stay in many different brands in different locations, both in my eco and mid-scale, all through to luxury.

[00:24:41] It's courses for courses.

[00:24:43] Yeah.

[00:24:44] Prior to our recording here, you mentioned, you said something, clubs, not spas.

[00:24:49] Maybe expand on that.

[00:24:50] Is that something you kind of were just referring to, or is there something more specific?

[00:24:55] No.

[00:24:55] I think it goes back to, firstly, how we're developing hotels.

[00:24:59] Number one, this idea of community and socialization becomes much more important to us.

[00:25:03] And I think that, now we've talked about the animated bar or the bar for the community.

[00:25:09] Well, let's just do a club.

[00:25:10] Yeah.

[00:25:11] I think most importantly was, really, it's about the predictability or the possible predictability of revenue and income that a club can create.

[00:25:20] Versus the more reactive element that a spa is creating.

[00:25:24] But when you have a membership, as you know, and your listeners will definitely know, you drive a membership, you get predictable incomes on a monthly basis.

[00:25:32] You're bringing people into the facility.

[00:25:34] They bring light and animation.

[00:25:35] They spend money elsewhere in the hotel or in the spa.

[00:25:39] And they've got benefits.

[00:25:40] Whereas maybe classical spa development previously was, let's build a spa for our hotel guests.

[00:25:47] Let's build a fitness area for our hotel guests.

[00:25:50] And it's capturing hotel guests.

[00:25:53] So you're therefore, depending on the fluctuation of their occupancy or the length of time they have to stay on a property,

[00:25:58] or your ability to drive in external consumers.

[00:26:01] And now what we're saying is we're building spas in urban locations for locals, right?

[00:26:08] So we're building and creating and thinking about our spa experience from a location, accessibility, price point, product selection,

[00:26:16] to bring locals in and our hotel guests can benefit from it.

[00:26:20] Rather than previously saying we're building this for a hotel guest as an amenity,

[00:26:25] and therefore maybe some of our locals come in.

[00:26:28] So it sounds like a very small swapping of sentence structure.

[00:26:32] No, no.

[00:26:32] It's quite a significant change in mindset and thought process that is coming out through our entire industry, right?

[00:26:40] We're seeking from an owner, and our responsibility is to support ownership on creating return and investment on an asset.

[00:26:46] Well, let's make sure that every square meter of that asset is creating return.

[00:26:51] It's either creating return as a profit center or it's driving experience, which allows us to drive occupancy and rate.

[00:26:59] And I think that well-being plays a role on both sides.

[00:27:02] It's a highly aspirational reason to book and to click and to stay.

[00:27:06] And it can be with the right configuration, the right thought process, a profitable business, but more importantly, highly experiential, right?

[00:27:15] It's probably one of the most intimate ways of connecting with your guests.

[00:27:18] You know, we know that a wellness guest on our property will spend 55% to 60% more than a standard leisure guest.

[00:27:26] They'll stay longer.

[00:27:27] They have a greater propensity to book suites and also return.

[00:27:32] And they have a higher propensity for recommendation.

[00:27:35] Tie those things together.

[00:27:37] They're a very, very powerful group to be attracted to anyone's property.

[00:27:39] And so, you know, wellness plays a strong lead in doing that.

[00:27:42] And again, the club, not spa, is really about a mindset of thinking about how you approach community and how you approach development.

[00:27:49] Fitness is expanding.

[00:27:51] Movement is expanding.

[00:27:52] Spa treatment rooms are changing.

[00:27:54] We're looking at more socialization space for our thermal areas, how we design pools.

[00:27:59] A big change happening.

[00:28:02] We would like to emulate, and maybe say I, or we are hoping, speaking for we, you know, the equinox, the high mat, the third spaces of this world, right?

[00:28:12] Who are creating great club experiences in size than square meters.

[00:28:15] They're not so different than the square meters that we're building in standard hotels in urban resort location.

[00:28:22] So why not look to create a club environment?

[00:28:25] So let me see if I get in this straight in.

[00:28:29] Let's say you had a property, a nice property here in Whitefish, Montana, which you don't, but you should.

[00:28:34] Oh, yeah.

[00:28:34] I'd love to have one.

[00:28:35] Yeah, yeah.

[00:28:36] And it's got this beautiful club experience that you guys have built out.

[00:28:39] Now, I'm not staying at the hotel, but I live in the area, and now I can get a membership to that club, right?

[00:28:45] Along with any of the patrons of the hotel or the property itself, which I would imagine then would drive you guys or, you know, management companies like yours to make the club even better because now it's a consistent profit center versus something that's just an expense line that maybe someone would use.

[00:29:03] A hundred percent.

[00:29:04] I believe you hit the nail on the head.

[00:29:05] But also, at the same time, you're bringing community in.

[00:29:08] There's going to be also co-working.

[00:29:10] We're going to stay in the lobby.

[00:29:11] We recommended to stay in the hotel.

[00:29:12] There's their club.

[00:29:14] And so their friends will stay there.

[00:29:15] They'll dine there maybe once or twice a week.

[00:29:17] Hey, this is not a new concept, right?

[00:29:19] This has been done.

[00:29:20] It's been done in our Fairmont, you know, our Claremont in Berkeley.

[00:29:23] It's a 5,000-member club.

[00:29:27] This episode is brought to you by our good friends in Matabolic.

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[00:29:58] That's M-A-D-A-B-O-L-I-C.com.

[00:30:05] Right?

[00:30:06] And the club is a dominant part of that property.

[00:30:08] Everyone benefits from it.

[00:30:09] You've seen that happen more and more.

[00:30:11] It's going to take some time and not, you know, not an overnight situation.

[00:30:17] But the models are there to prove success.

[00:30:19] And particularly in the state, Scottsdale with our Fairmont is a club.

[00:30:22] It's a fantastic club operated by Trilogy Group.

[00:30:26] And it's based on a club business of which the hotel is part of that.

[00:30:29] And so that's a – if you want to tie people back to community, back to our theme, building hotels for living, then living in the future can be well-being orientated.

[00:30:37] You know, it will be about movement, nutrition, recovery, and so on.

[00:30:42] And so thinking about that, when you're thinking in my role, you start a project today, you won't see that project come to life for five to six years, maybe a little bit longer.

[00:30:52] Then you've got to have a longer-term thought process.

[00:30:54] You need to be founding your principles and your strategic ideas based on fundamentals, you know, not moving with the wind.

[00:31:01] And on long-term plays, a long-term play, I think, is club-based activities and club-based activations that allow us to build better facilities and upkeep those facilities in a better way for a local community.

[00:31:14] Are you familiar with the Olympic Club in San Francisco?

[00:31:16] Have you seen that one?

[00:31:17] No, I'm not.

[00:31:17] No, no.

[00:31:18] So I feel like that's something that's been doing what you're talking about for a very long time.

[00:31:22] They, you know, it's – I've had friends who, you know, the sport I played in back in the day was water polo.

[00:31:27] And if you were very good, you got invited to join the Olympic Club and play for their team, which was one of the best, you know, club teams out there.

[00:31:33] I never got invited, but I should have.

[00:31:36] So whatever.

[00:31:37] And we can talk about that later.

[00:31:39] But the – it was so cool that, like, they had this really cool, beautiful roaming pool where they got to play water polo and swim and compete.

[00:31:45] And then it had, you know, all the amenities of, like, a very high-end, like, you know, golf club as well.

[00:31:50] But then it had a hotel, which always confused me.

[00:31:52] My mind just couldn't, like, you know, put two and two together.

[00:31:56] I'm like, wait, so I can – you have a hotel that people can stay at and you get a discount for your friends if you're a member, right?

[00:32:02] And then it just seemed like this seamless thing and became the centerpiece of very, very nice.

[00:32:07] And I always wonder, I'm like, wow, that's such a unique, cool thing.

[00:32:10] I think they have something similar up in Seattle.

[00:32:12] So, yeah, I guess it has been around for longer than I've known, I've been aware of.

[00:32:16] But now it seems to be really, really popular and something that can really, you know, go to the moon.

[00:32:22] Yeah, I think it's a combination of, you know, I mean, a Midtown in Chicago has got rooms, right?

[00:32:28] I mean, it's a huge club.

[00:32:29] Here's another example.

[00:32:30] I'm sure they want to build more.

[00:32:31] I think the Midtown club concept is incredible.

[00:32:35] I mean, the scale is incredible.

[00:32:36] But what they do is pretty incredible too, right?

[00:32:38] And so they're putting rooms on, you know, you had Solo House, which was basically a members club.

[00:32:43] It's now definitely adding rooms onto every time it builds a club.

[00:32:47] It's a similar sort of process, I think, from a real estate point of view, it makes a little sense.

[00:32:51] When you're looking at, you know, ACO is very, we are very active within the residential market.

[00:32:57] We're one of the leading residential, branded residentials in the world.

[00:33:02] And there you're seeing the idea of a hotel, a residential being built with a centralized services.

[00:33:07] In fact, again, Old World is an example of that, where we have a dedicated club and spa within that property.

[00:33:14] But residents have access to certain things, including the 25-meter pool, which is beautifully built.

[00:33:20] And so from a real estate development point of view, this will start to make sense.

[00:33:24] You know, solid payout.

[00:33:24] That's probably one very topical element we've been discussing all year.

[00:33:29] That shift, which is now ending up, we'll be releasing a white paper this year called Making Ways, which would be basically a design.

[00:33:38] What's happening in wellness design?

[00:33:40] You know, what are our thoughts about wellness design?

[00:33:42] And we had a number of leading speakers that supported us on that.

[00:33:45] And then we've been able to release that in January.

[00:33:47] I think the second thing we've been talking about is the resurgence of bathing culture.

[00:33:52] Yes, that was my next question.

[00:33:53] Yeah.

[00:33:54] I'm excited to talk about that.

[00:33:55] It's a popular past-time hobby of mine.

[00:33:58] I love it.

[00:33:59] But also, I think it's really a resurgence with certain element.

[00:34:03] And I think the U.S. market, Canadian market, relatively new, right, in terms of this.

[00:34:09] For a central European market, a couple of thousand years old, right?

[00:34:13] This is just so for me.

[00:34:14] But what's now old is new again, okay?

[00:34:18] So what would we mean by this?

[00:34:20] I think, A, we're seeing an increase in the ideas of socialization.

[00:34:23] Socialization.

[00:34:23] So what we're calling the move from me to we, the we of wellness, right?

[00:34:28] Which is group-based activities.

[00:34:30] It can be, and much less still, you know, other people's industries, but hiking, movement, outdoor, yoga, boutique fitness concept.

[00:34:39] People coming together to exercise and move together and be a tribe, right?

[00:34:43] And this move to we is also now moving back to the ancient arts and practices of socialized bathing, right?

[00:34:51] Where you think about bathing, so obviously Nordic bathing in sauna.

[00:34:55] It would be Jimbaran in Korea.

[00:34:58] It would be onsen bathing cultures in Japan.

[00:35:01] It would be Temescal in Mexico.

[00:35:04] It would be, you know, and on and on and on.

[00:35:07] And what you realize is that every culture historically has some form of bathing narrative.

[00:35:13] The majority, if not all, all right?

[00:35:15] Deep step away.

[00:35:16] So it was in India and so on.

[00:35:18] And then this bathing culture's bit resurgent.

[00:35:21] It's an ancient healing art and practice that works, all right?

[00:35:25] Don't need Huberman to tell us that sauna is good for you.

[00:35:29] That's why it's 3,000 years old, 2,000 years old, right?

[00:35:31] Because it wouldn't have been around if it wasn't, right?

[00:35:35] Don't need stats about that.

[00:35:36] Go on to Finland and Norway and they'll tell you very clearly they did it for a couple of thousand years, right?

[00:35:40] And so this resurgence is now coming back.

[00:35:44] And then you see, right, let's call it a re-skinning or a reinvention of this, both in resort location,

[00:35:49] where you've got these incredible Nordic spas opening in Canada.

[00:35:53] You've got a refurbishment of bathing towns in Central Europe.

[00:35:57] Onsen's having a huge boom now, particularly with all the American tourists going down to Japan

[00:36:01] over the last two or three years to where they've been going through that incredible country.

[00:36:06] And then you're seeing things like Glen Ivey in California, which is a historical, you know,

[00:36:11] used to be an historical bathing area there and so on.

[00:36:14] And you see this resurgence there, which is based on the ideas and benefits, physical benefit.

[00:36:18] At the same time, you see this really interesting urbanization of bathing, right?

[00:36:23] And you've got people like other ships, which are most lost in New York.

[00:36:27] You've got Toronto.

[00:36:29] Congratulations to their work on that.

[00:36:31] You've got sweatpants coming up with infrared and cold plunge.

[00:36:34] You've got cores in Los Angeles, right, coming up.

[00:36:38] You've then got the locations in London, like Banya No. 1,

[00:36:42] where my friend Andre Foreman has been a proponent of bringing Banya practice back into central location.

[00:36:47] And then you've got Irie ancient baths from Spain.

[00:36:50] I mean, and QC term are the bigger ones, right?

[00:36:52] So these are all ones you can see in the state.

[00:36:55] I'm trying to reference ones there where you're paying an entry price and you're then doing a self-guiding circuit,

[00:37:01] which is based on a volume.

[00:37:03] It's a very, very effective wellness delivery to a large group of people, right?

[00:37:07] And so, you know, and it's fun and it's effective.

[00:37:09] And so I think that's an interesting place for hospitality to be stepping into.

[00:37:14] So we're getting into that, I would say, the big way, but we're going to have an incredible location opening up in Lake Louise,

[00:37:19] which is one of our absolute heritage Fairmonts in the Rocky Mountains.

[00:37:25] That property is outstanding.

[00:37:27] Yeah.

[00:37:28] It's something very special.

[00:37:29] And we've been able to take space and turn that into, I think,

[00:37:34] going to be one of the most iconic bathing house locations on the planet.

[00:37:37] And I'm very biased because I worked on it for five years,

[00:37:39] but it's got the most incredible views and locations where you're going through seven or eight saunas,

[00:37:45] you're going to cold plunge, you're going into aquatomic pools outdoors,

[00:37:48] socialized, day-entry, self-guided.

[00:37:52] Again, interesting from a consumer point of view because it's effective and it's accessible, you know?

[00:37:58] Yeah.

[00:37:59] And from an only point of view, it is predictable and profitable, right?

[00:38:04] So, you know, those things together, I think, create a great synergy.

[00:38:09] I think there's so much more room on the bathing development and opportunity that we're going to see a massive upstream in that.

[00:38:17] And again, back to my point, Eric, we'd build this stuff anyway.

[00:38:20] We'd build a steam and a sauna and a cold plunge and aquatonic pool.

[00:38:23] Maybe this is now building this fight a different way to make it more accessible and making more of a journey in the circuit.

[00:38:28] So it's not as if we're saying let's build new real estate.

[00:38:31] What we're saying is let's repurpose it, let's do it in a different way, you know,

[00:38:34] and learn from what's happening around us to create a much more sophisticated and better product, you know?

[00:38:39] And that also goes into cold plunge, which is also the combination of sauna, cold plunge, and mindfulness,

[00:38:46] I believe is one of the most powerful things you can do and the most democratic way of delivering wellness.

[00:38:50] And I think we have a responsibility to democratize and reach as many people as possible.

[00:38:57] It's good for business and it's good for consumer, right?

[00:39:02] If we want to open this up, you know, and I think that, you know, we're rambling a bit,

[00:39:06] that wellness has always been seen previously as a bit of a 1%.

[00:39:09] You have to be wealthy to be well.

[00:39:11] And I think that's a message over the next four or five years is going to start changing because access to data,

[00:39:18] access to physical activity and movement, access to the elements to help you recover,

[00:39:23] and maybe better access and understanding about nutrition means all of us can be well.

[00:39:28] And that's an exciting thing for everybody, I think.

[00:39:33] Yeah.

[00:39:33] And it's something that I bring up often.

[00:39:37] It's kind of uncomfortable for people in our industry to hear sometimes.

[00:39:40] It's like, well, you know, are we really democratizing wellness?

[00:39:44] Are we just making people in our vertical very healthy?

[00:39:46] Like, you and I are not active, right?

[00:39:49] And if you go on one floor where our conference was, people look pretty darn good, right?

[00:39:55] People are doing all right, right?

[00:39:56] And then you go two floors up to whatever conference was up there,

[00:39:59] and people looked very different.

[00:40:01] And it was like, obviously, that's an industry I'm in, but I've always had concerns like,

[00:40:05] you know, are the people wearing the Oura rings and the eight-sleep mattress and doing the cold plunge?

[00:40:09] Like myself, basically.

[00:40:11] But we're not like everybody else.

[00:40:13] And not everyone else is following that trend.

[00:40:15] And I want to, even my media family members, I'm like, hey, you know, you guys should try this.

[00:40:19] But, you know, they're not quite there.

[00:40:21] It's not democratized.

[00:40:22] And I think one of the things I want to get back to you and ask you about on the social bathing,

[00:40:25] because you keep saying you want to make an experience,

[00:40:27] is I've noticed in the United States, I've had the opportunity to talk to like Andrew from Sauna House

[00:40:31] and Robbie from Other Ship and what they're doing.

[00:40:34] But I think there's an education lag on especially like how to do these things effectively

[00:40:40] and also the etiquette involved.

[00:40:42] Like you go to the sauna at my gym and it's great.

[00:40:44] It's always packed, which is excellent.

[00:40:46] But people are walking in with their sneakers, right?

[00:40:48] They're like on the bench.

[00:40:51] Like there's just, it's just, you know, there's no good etiquette around it.

[00:40:53] So is that something you guys, when you talk about experiences, is it part education and instruction as well?

[00:40:58] Yeah, I think, I think for the U.S. market, that's definitely important, right?

[00:41:02] I think for a central European market, it's just embedded in our culture.

[00:41:06] And so people really understand how to use a sauna, that you need a towel,

[00:41:10] you don't bring your flip-flops in and, you know, be respectful and so on, right?

[00:41:14] And so, yes, there'll be a need for education.

[00:41:16] But the fact that people are understanding the power of heat and cold and mindfulness is the first step, right?

[00:41:23] And I think that, you know, yes, maybe we're in an echo chamber, right, in our industry to a certain degree.

[00:41:28] And my algorithm only pushes me to things that I really like and want to see.

[00:41:32] So do I therefore assume that everyone's doing it?

[00:41:34] And maybe not the case.

[00:41:36] But I think that when you're looking at a practice that is so ancient and so beloved in many territories,

[00:41:43] what you see in America is just simply that, you know, obviously you're waking up to it, but you are waking up to it, right?

[00:41:48] It's, oh, wow, this is a brand new thing.

[00:41:50] So, well, wait a minute, you know, everyone, there's more swallows in Finland than there are cars or some sort of statistic like that, right?

[00:41:57] So it's just not something that is not new to people.

[00:42:00] And so I think what's happening in the States and Canada is particularly is understanding it and go, wow, this could really help me.

[00:42:06] And it's a great social thing to do.

[00:42:08] And it's fun, but it also, most importantly, it's effective, you know.

[00:42:12] So the growth for that is really interesting.

[00:42:15] I think from a U.S. point of view, certainly for those types of concepts.

[00:42:19] But for hospitality, we've, again, always done these types of builds, but that's how we've done it, you know.

[00:42:25] And I think with the health industry, it will be the same.

[00:42:27] And you'll see your health club with a sort of like tick box sauna, tick box steam room and maybe a cold shower start to adopt, you know, larger spaces for recovery.

[00:42:37] And really this is the part of the recovery conversation, right?

[00:42:40] Which is where, you know, you know, athletes in America have been placing their elbows as baseball pitchers or their knees as ice tubs for 50 years, right?

[00:42:51] So the pro athletes knew it was good for you, you know, and using sauna and cleansing.

[00:42:55] Then it's just washing into the mainstream consciousness.

[00:42:58] And I think that is the beginning of it now.

[00:43:01] But I think that the popularity growth of that is going to be very, very good because it's everyone's going to sit in the sauna, right?

[00:43:08] You know, well, everyone here in the cold plunge, but everyone here in the sauna.

[00:43:11] So I think, you know, I think a lot of people talk about cold plunging, but when they actually do it, it's a different thing.

[00:43:19] Not many people are having a problem getting into a hot sauna for 15 minutes, right?

[00:43:25] And so that's great.

[00:43:26] That's democratized well-being.

[00:43:28] It's getting people thinking about their health.

[00:43:30] And maybe when they're in there and they have the experience of cleansing and they walk out of doing a sauna on a cold plunge circuit, you feel great.

[00:43:38] You know, you want to do that again and maybe you want to do other things.

[00:43:41] Maybe you want to eat healthier that day.

[00:43:43] Maybe you don't have alcohol for those two days, right?

[00:43:45] That's where it becomes interesting, isn't it?

[00:43:47] It's like the sort of precursor to expanded health consciousness.

[00:43:51] I mean, that's a really strange way of saying it, but maybe that's what it is.

[00:43:55] When you have that feeling, you know, and this is an interesting topic, Eric, because it's hard to feel good exercising, right?

[00:44:01] To be frank, you know, if you are overweight or not conditioned, it's hard work.

[00:44:05] But going into a sauna and having that feel-good feeling, it's a great starting point.

[00:44:10] That's why I think its popularity will really flourish.

[00:44:13] Yeah, I love it.

[00:44:14] Let's look into 2025, man.

[00:44:16] What has you most excited about next year in the world of wellness?

[00:44:23] Yeah, in the world of wellness, I think we've got some incredible openings.

[00:44:28] Happily, I mentioned a few.

[00:44:29] The World War was open last year.

[00:44:30] We've got Lake Louise opening, which is going to be, I think, a really strong icon facility for us.

[00:44:35] We've got an incredible Jim Buran, two and a half thousand square views coming into Fairmont, Hanoi in Korea.

[00:44:41] It's Fairmont, Hanoi in Vietnam, sorry, but a Korean bathing house coming to Vietnam, which is going to be quite interesting.

[00:44:47] We've got two incredible clubs opening.

[00:44:50] Again, I think the big box ideas or country club ideas coming with the Mia in Manchester as a Fairmont property.

[00:44:55] We've got a great sort of athletic-based resort concept for our wellness coming into the Hattienda in Andalusia in Spain.

[00:45:02] So next year for me, it's openings.

[00:45:04] It's been maybe four or five years of working with teams and operating teams, and hopefully seeing the fruition of that coming into the marketplace,

[00:45:12] particularly with the two bathing concepts and the two big box club concepts for the Fairmont brand and other things that happen.

[00:45:18] So openings for me on a personal level is probably where the primary focus is going to be.

[00:45:24] I think that I'm excited by, I'm going to try to put it to the right way.

[00:45:30] We talk a lot about this idea of people understanding the information they're receiving and maybe taking a step back from that in 2025 and saying,

[00:45:41] wait a minute, you're saying eat kale, you're saying no eat kale.

[00:45:45] You're saying it's 10,000 steps, you're saying it's 7,000 steps.

[00:45:48] You're saying, whoa, stop.

[00:45:50] Let's just get back to some basics, right?

[00:45:52] I want to move my body.

[00:45:53] I want to fuel myself properly.

[00:45:55] I want to use my data well.

[00:45:56] I think what we're going to see in 2025 and beyond is a little rejection of some of this stuff that's being fed to us,

[00:46:02] the understanding that maybe it's based on, how should we say, an agenda,

[00:46:06] and actually then being able to sort of interpret my data in a way that gets me back to some fundamentals, right?

[00:46:12] And it sounds like a big topic and everything else, but I think there's a little bit of lethargy happening where we're being overly bombarded with information.

[00:46:19] I think our consumers are going to start to say, listen, I'm going to make my own thoughts and ideas and choices.

[00:46:25] And I'm going to use the data I've got.

[00:46:27] I'm going to use the information I trust that's valued.

[00:46:30] I think that's going to be an interesting change the next couple of years.

[00:46:33] Maybe it's because I'm in the echo chamber of fitness and well-being, but I think that people are going to return back to having a discussion with themselves about fundamentals,

[00:46:41] what they believe, what they don't believe, right?

[00:46:43] And that's going to be important for us in the industry to stick to our fundamentals of movement.

[00:46:49] You know, I was in the health laboratory conference in London last week,

[00:46:55] and Les Mills' team presented their stats for the most popular classes, right?

[00:47:01] Interesting.

[00:47:02] Three of those classes out of the top 10 were cycle-based exercise, right?

[00:47:07] And we're here in the industry going, ah, cycling's done.

[00:47:11] People like cycling, right?

[00:47:13] People like being in an environment where they can do a spin class.

[00:47:16] I think sometimes we, you know, so being confident about what, understanding really what people want

[00:47:22] and where they put their bum on the seat and then exercise and movement, I think it's important, right?

[00:47:26] Because we can get, often get carried away on creating a new concept or creating a new idea.

[00:47:31] But actually, people like doing cycling, you know?

[00:47:34] They want to be in a studio, they want to cycle in a sweat.

[00:47:36] And so that, I think, is an important message for me and also for the industry is to really think about our fundamentals.

[00:47:44] If that makes any sense in 2025, right?

[00:47:46] It doesn't always have to be new and flash.

[00:47:48] It has to be good and well-delivered.

[00:47:50] I think that's going to be our focus.

[00:47:54] And I think, well, I see other people thinking about too, you know?

[00:47:57] Also, I'm excited.

[00:47:59] I mean, I don't do Pilates, right?

[00:48:02] I respect Pilates greatly.

[00:48:04] I had a chance to try Pilates about 10 years ago for the hardest thing I've ever done.

[00:48:08] I'm really excited about that boom because the accessibility to Pilates through technology and through video-based technology

[00:48:15] is making this incredible exercise form much more broader and much more available.

[00:48:21] And I'm going to say this, maybe it's right or wrong.

[00:48:23] It was hard to find someone to teach Pilates.

[00:48:25] Now, with the digital support that the instructor's got in the studio, that's allowing us to deliver this wonderful exercise form

[00:48:32] to a much broader group of people.

[00:48:34] And I think it's highly effective.

[00:48:35] I think that's going to be a continued boom and arc where, you know, what I like about that is

[00:48:41] is this merging of the digital support tool and the physical environment coming together in a way that allows an instructor, right,

[00:48:49] to use the prompting to then deliver an experience, you know.

[00:48:53] Because I've seen this in action with a group, Pilates, which is operated by the Home's Place team,

[00:48:58] is launching that concept out where they really integrate that really well to create a fantastic experience for Pilates,

[00:49:04] which I think is going to keep on moving and booming, right?

[00:49:06] So that's a cool thing to know.

[00:49:08] And men, you'll be into that space too.

[00:49:10] So that's three things I'm excited to see in 25.

[00:49:14] Yeah, fantastic.

[00:49:15] And I think one of the things that, you know, I could double down on is like,

[00:49:19] I think as an industry, we really need to not just say it, but do it,

[00:49:23] meet the consumer where they're at.

[00:49:24] Like, okay, if they like cycling, that's great.

[00:49:27] Let's not stand on the top of the mountain and be like, no, come to me.

[00:49:30] This is the ultimate.

[00:49:31] No, we got to go down the mountain, find where people are,

[00:49:34] see where they're at, engage with them, and then start to work themselves,

[00:49:38] you know, up to where they want to go.

[00:49:39] But I think, you know, fundamentally, that's something in the industry we've always done

[00:49:43] is like, we've intimidated people.

[00:49:45] We've made it seem out, you know, we've alienated.

[00:49:48] It's been a very, we can do better and we are doing better.

[00:49:50] So that's really cool.

[00:49:51] No, I think you're obviously right.

[00:49:53] You know, it's just, it means you really are, you know,

[00:49:57] understanding exercise still aliens a lot of people or good exercise aliens a lot of people,

[00:50:01] rewarding people doing fundamentals and giving them what they want.

[00:50:04] Right.

[00:50:05] In terms of, in terms of that, it's not rocket science, right?

[00:50:09] But we can overcomplicate it to a certain degree within our realm.

[00:50:13] I think through enthusiasm for all the new things that come out.

[00:50:16] And because I think fitness professionals are passionate and enthusiastic.

[00:50:18] They want to deliver all this new stuff.

[00:50:19] For instance, you can forget, you know, the fundamentals, right?

[00:50:22] So I think that's, that's it.

[00:50:24] That's why, that's why, again, I'm very passionate about the ability for sauna and cold plunge culture,

[00:50:30] sweat culture to continue growing because it's so accessible.

[00:50:33] And I think that, you know, the, the mission I think we have as responsible professionals,

[00:50:39] but also people who are interested in creating good business, businesses is to be as broad

[00:50:43] and open as possible to the broadest market.

[00:50:46] Just to talk about the, the longevity and the biohacking and this little 1% the expensive

[00:50:50] stuff.

[00:50:51] There's a great market for that too.

[00:50:52] And there's a lot of people who want to move into that space who will progress through

[00:50:56] and spend progressively more on their health and wellbeing, right?

[00:50:59] And go to better clubs and bigger clubs as they move through the cycle.

[00:51:03] But I think the market for that is very, very relatively small.

[00:51:06] And so I think that when we're looking at from a broad portfolio of hospitality, we will certainly

[00:51:11] be adopting tech and looking at what's happening within longevity spaces, but making sure that

[00:51:17] the plays we make and recommendations we make to our owners for this type of equipment

[00:51:22] encourages, whether it's hyperbaric or it could be, you know, coal plunging, or it could be

[00:51:26] infrared technology, whatever else is a long-term play.

[00:51:30] Right.

[00:51:31] And so I think that there's still a lot of, a lot of science there that needs to be grounded,

[00:51:36] but we're starting to see some things coming into the market that are very, very grounded

[00:51:40] and we'll certainly be adopting some of those within our concepts to support our guests.

[00:51:45] Right.

[00:51:45] But maybe not first removal.

[00:51:46] That makes any sense.

[00:51:48] Makes total sense.

[00:51:49] Emma, if, if a couple of things, if people want to get into the market,

[00:51:52] get ahold of you, where they go.

[00:51:54] And more importantly, if people are going to reach out, what would you like them to reach

[00:51:58] out about?

[00:51:59] What, what do you need help with?

[00:52:02] I get a lot of people reaching out to me, Eric.

[00:52:04] What, what, what, what I want to do that.

[00:52:06] But if you want to get, you want to see what we're up to, you want to keep a, keep a track

[00:52:09] on us that we're very active.

[00:52:11] I'm personally active on LinkedIn.

[00:52:12] So you can get me on LinkedIn at Evelyn Brown.

[00:52:15] If you want to see a little bit more of this, the sort of all the travel and the great

[00:52:18] hotels, and you can reach me on Instagram on EMLBRO, which you're more than happy to do.

[00:52:23] And if you're going to reach out to me, I'm interested in, in tech solutions for sure.

[00:52:29] I'm interested in looking, like expand our understanding of that space and what's happening.

[00:52:33] You know, we've been, obviously we are, we're active users of hyperrise and normal

[00:52:36] tech for compression.

[00:52:37] You know, we've got a building a relationship with ASCAP out of New York and looking there,

[00:52:41] one of the pieces of tech was now launched in the USA market.

[00:52:44] We, you know, we're building, you know, into the prior and different things.

[00:52:47] So, so anything sort of tech and digital based that can support hospitality, I'd be definitely

[00:52:51] keen to look at.

[00:52:53] And anything new fitness on the boutique side, you know, I am, we are interested in looking

[00:52:59] at where boutique is going and what's coming up in the boutique market from new classes to

[00:53:03] new concepts and new ideas.

[00:53:05] Whether we adopt them or not is a different thing.

[00:53:06] But certainly, you know, from a boutique side of things, I'm really keen to understand where

[00:53:11] that landscape is going, what it's doing, how it's developing and what people are seeking

[00:53:16] because it helps us in our design and development of, of our fitness spaces and what we're thinking

[00:53:21] about.

[00:53:22] But at the same time, maybe opportunities from a location point of view for those places

[00:53:27] to be located.

[00:53:28] So then the two things I'd like to hear about, but don't bombard you all at once.

[00:53:31] Yeah.

[00:53:31] To be honest with you, it's hard for me to respond to DMs on LinkedIn, but I'll try.

[00:53:34] Yeah.

[00:53:36] Well done.

[00:53:36] Well done.

[00:53:37] Emlyn, thank you for, for joining me on this Friday.

[00:53:41] This has been a lot of fun.

[00:53:42] Definitely met and exceeded expectations of our conversation.

[00:53:45] And once again, thank you, Joe Cannon for bringing us together.

[00:53:49] And yeah, it's been a pleasure.

[00:53:51] So yeah.

[00:53:52] Ladies and gentlemen, Emlyn Brown.

[00:53:54] Thanks, Eric.

[00:53:55] I appreciate it.

[00:53:56] Thanks for the time.

[00:53:56] Thank you so much.

[00:53:58] Hey, wait, don't leave yet.

[00:54:00] This is your host, Eric Malzone.

[00:54:02] And I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Fitness.

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[00:54:51] This is Eric Malzone and this is the Future of Fitness.

[00:54:53] Have a great day.

[00:54:54] Bye.

[00:54:55] Bye.