Is Your Gym Fit?

Meetings & Conventions: Short Cuts July 2003 Current Issue
July 2003
Short Cuts:
Is Your Gym Fit?

How some hotel workout facilities shape up

Take a seat: Fitness bikes await at Gravity Fitness and Spa at Le Parker Meridien in New York City.

Broken equipment, uninspiring views and a TV tuned to This Old House reruns hardly inspire the time-crunched traveler to use a hotel gym long enough to break a sweat. The problem is, relatively few hotels own and operate their fitness centers, says Ronald Rosell, president of Fit for Business (www.fitforbusiness.com), a new online service that recommends and books time at gym facilities for travelers at some 400 properties around the world. “When a hotel says its gym is ‘state of the art,’ that doesn’t tell you anything,” he notes.

At the same time, many truly are exercise-inspiring. Consider the following hotel gyms, all owned and operated by the property and free to guests.

The cozy 67-room Bellevue Club Hotel (www.bellevueclub.com) in Bellevue, Wash., offers a 7,100-square-foot fitness center featuring 75 pieces of cardiovascular equipment, an Olympic-size pool, and classes in yoga, tai chi and Pilates. Guests also can take to the courts for tennis, squash or racquetball.

At the newly renovated 15,000-square-foot Gravity Fitness and Spa at the 730-room Le Parker Meridien (www.parkermeridien.com) in New York City, guests can enjoy racquetball and basketball, a 40-foot-long glass-enclosed rooftop pool with an aquatic program offering swimming instruction, and a plethora of other fitness classes, from belly dancing to kick-boxing.

Ranked by Men’s Fitness magazine (www.mensfitness.com) as one of the top 10 domestic hotel gyms, the 15,000-square-foot fitness center at the 280-room Biltmore Hotel (www.biltmorehotel.com) in Coral Gables, Fla., offers more than 40 different exercise classes, individual consultation with personal trainers and a full aquatic program. Also on the top-10 list: facilities at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel in California and the Verandah Club at the Wyndham Anatole in Dallas.

• TERENCE BAKER