Starwood Hotels and Resorts recently announced that the company is revamping the fitness studios at its Westin-branded hotels to keep pace with new trends in fitness that recently came to light after the chain conducted in-depth guest research and monitored workout trends in gyms and fitness centers across the country. Westin's design team examined guest behavior in relation to health amenities and found that their guests wanted a well-rounded, holistic fitness experience along with more stretching, yoga and fitness classes. In response, Westin is transforming its fitness facilities at 186 hotels around the world with new equipment and a radical blue-light therapy. The new fitness studios roll-out will continue throughout 2012 as part of the WestinWORKOUT program designed to keep up with evolving fitness trends and enhance the brand's goal of promoting health and well-being for travelers.
In order to capitalize on the trend toward a more well-rounded fitness experience, Westin chose to remove select pieces of exercise equipment that its guests were not using frequently in order to allow more floor space for activities like stretching, yoga and other smaller fitness classes. Westin also added new pulley machines to its smaller-sized fitness studios to maximize the use of floor space and provide more different workout options for guests.
Westin’s plans call for a departure from the typical gym interior aesthetic stemming from the changing trends of how people work out today. The Westin Design Team chose natural, soft-tone colored organic materials with textural woven flooring instead of the typical black rubber gym floors. Each redesigned fitness studio will also display full-size art murals depicting images of people running up grassy hills to help illustrate Westin's goal of helping guests leave feeling its facilities better than when they arrived.
The Westin Design Team also worked with electronics giant Philips to come up with an innovative new blue light technology to be used as lighting in the new gym facilities. Philips' new energizing fluorescent ActiViva Lighting system is designed to positively influence guest’s sense of well-being and help them feel more alert, awake and energized when exercising in specific workout areas such as the popular cardio zone. The Design Team also customized the lighting in all other workout zones to better reflect the type of exercise taking place in each different area.
Because Westin is owned by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, and the firm operates more than 180 hotels and resorts in over 36 countries, it could take a few years before all of its fitness studios are revised. Until then, if you want to experience a revamped Westin fitness studio for yourself, you’ll have to travel to one of the four completed studios currently open at the Westin Jersey City, Westin Riverwalk in San Antonio, Westin St. Francis in San Francisco or the Westin Gaslamp Quarter in San Diego.