Often, the average guest rarely has time to work out while staying in a hotel due to very busy schedules or lack of interest.
While the above negates the ideals of work-life balance, some hospitality promoters are checking the trend by incorporating health and wellness packages in the itinerary of guests’ experience in their hotels.
Though a subtle way and slow initially, the efforts are yielding results now; wooing more guests to hotel fitness and wellness centers.
The many guests (both in-house and outside) that throng Lagos Continental Hotel’s fitness centre and spa, located on the 5th floor, attest to the above.
Beyond the comfort of the hotel’s 358 rooms and suites, guests’ experiential stay is now extended to the engaging and rejuvenating health and wellness packages, amid world-class facilities.
The state-of-the-art facilities include: stepper boards, climbing boards, treadmills, elliptical bikes, rowing machines, weight sections, boxing class, among others.
Of course, the Oriki Spa, located on the 5th floor, is the hotel’s address for relaxation and wellness for lifestyle lovers.
It offers rejuvenating spa experiences including: massages, facials, steam, sauna, body treatments, nails services, waxing among other personalised treats.
Excited at the development, Cutberga Onuoha, director of rooms, Lagos Continental Hotel, explained that the hotel is giving attention to fitness and wellness, amid huge investments in world-class facilities for obvious reasons.
She noted that wellness and fitness packages complement room patronage, enhance guest satisfaction and encourage longer stays.
“Wellness is very important to our guests. It offers a new experience for guests,” Onuoha said.
“Everybody now feels that it is very important to take care of themselves, and fitness and wellness have become very essential to every traveller”.
In addition to the above, the director of rooms division noted that the hotel strives to ensure that the guests’ fitness goals are met.
“Our gym is well-equipped with techno fitness equipment. They are the best providers of equipment when it comes to fitness and wellness.
“We also have professionals that are very knowledgeable and experienced to guide and train our guests.
“We also try to create tailor-made fitness goals for our guests to meet the individual needs,” Onuoha said.
She believes that the hotel has the best coaches and instructors in town, amid personal touch to their work and informed guidance to help the guests to achieve their fitness or wellness goals.
The bottom-line for her is to be fit and happy. “You know, fitness gives you mental health, relaxation, professional health, and the rest,” she enthused.
Bringing professional perspective to it, Joseph Akpereta, one of the gym instructors at Lagos Continental Hotel, summarised the essence of his job saying, “My job is to make sure my guests are fit, comfortable and happy”.
Apart from offering basic training, health, physical and mental-wise, Akpereta and other instructors also guide the guests on a healthy diet to complement their fitness training.
As much as he offers personalised touches, he often does circuit training, which allows him to train many persons at a time and to achieve more in a short time.
“It is aimed at bringing uniformity, and which enhances great performance by a larger number of persons. So, it is one programme that makes you achieve more under a less period of time,” he said.
Apart from the world-class facilities from techno gym, highly skilled instructors and motivated spa attendants, Akpereta noted that other things that standout Lagos Continental Hotel in its fitness offerings are the strict rules of engagement and impressive compliance by the guests.
“When you go to other gyms, you will see people making noise and even drinking in the gym. Here, we have standards and procedures. The procedures entail you being properly dressed and well-behaved”.
According to him, one’s fitness journey does not start and end one day. “It is a continuous lifestyle,” he noted.
While advising guests to take care of their health, he insisted that as one eats, he or she should also burn some calories and that continuous fitness does the job better.
“Always stay within the fitness terrain every time. No journey of fitness and wellness is complete without coming to Lagos Continental Hotel,” he concluded.
However, Onuoha noted that while staying in the hotel, which is the tallest in West Africa, amid views of the Atlantic Ocean, Lagos creek, and the city across its 23 floors, the guest’s experience is not complete without fitness and wellness, most of which are complementary.
