Hotel Gyms Empty

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When fitness awareness was at its peak, hotels joined the mood with in-house gyms, which could be on the ground floor, second or the top floor depending on the size of the hotel.

Smaller hotels simply removed beds from one room and fitted it with  treadmills, some weights and some bikes. Voila! It’s a gym. The target was the upwardly mobile set that did not want to lose three days of gym time while they flew from one state to the other, on business or play.

How many guests used the gym? Did hotels keep track? Regular gyms have access cards so they know how many members clock in. Anyway, it took hotels some time to realize that they have competition. From other hotels?

Nope, from commercial gyms and the membership system. Let’s say there is a fictitious gym called FitFab with branches in most cities. You fly from Winnipeg to Toronto, check into a hotel, change into your sweats and drive to the nearest Toronto FitFab. That is one of the perks of being a member.

FitFab has other advantages over a hotel gym. The buzz. There are human beings around, running on machines, lifting weights or skipping rope. The visitor from Winnipeg might strike up a conversation with the locals and get valuable information about his mission to Toronto.

Commercial gyms have the human element.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.

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