{"id":37992,"date":"2018-08-30T10:00:30","date_gmt":"2018-08-30T09:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.luxury-hotel-expert.com\/?p=37992"},"modified":"2025-03-24T23:11:37","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T23:11:37","slug":"wellness-health-six-senses-hotels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/delporte-hospitality.com\/en\/wellness-health-six-senses-hotels\/","title":{"rendered":"Wellness and Health at Six Senses Hotels"},"content":{"rendered":"

I attended the 2017 edition of the ILTM Conference in Cannes. Over the course of the program, I sought out numerous hoteliers and hospitality experts to discover the latest themes and challenges facing the luxury hotel industry today.<\/p>\n

One theme that is particularly dear to my heart is sustainability and wellness. Let\u2019s not forget that, at the end of the day, the primary purpose of a hotel room is to provide a good night\u2019s sleep. I was eager to seek out hotel groups that shared this same philosophy toward preserving a client\u2019s well-being and relaxation.<\/p>\n

I was lucky to run into Neil Jacobs, CEO of Six Senses Hotels & Resorts. A passionate believer of wellness and health, Neil described the importance of integrating some of these key considerations into his group\u2019s identity.<\/p>\n

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Six senses – Bhutan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How do you manage health and food at your hotels?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

For us, it\u2019s a huge part of our DNA. A lot of hotel groups are talking today about wellness, etc. but you can\u2019t just wake up one day and say, \u201cI\u2019m in the wellness business\u201d. It takes a long time, requires a lot of commitment and a lot of money to do it properly, and often most hotel groups can\u2019t. They say it\u2019s too expensive, there\u2019s no return on investment, etc. So they don\u2019t do it. We don\u2019t look at it like that. It is our DNA. We don\u2019t look at things and say, \u201cOk, it cost me $100 to develop \u2018Sleep with Six Senses\u2019. I need to sell it at $200.\u201d I don\u2019t look at it like that. I look at what it is doing for the brand, how it\u2019s driving occupancy, how it\u2019s driving average rate and length of stay by having this programmatic stuff that we do every single day. We don\u2019t think about it in the same way that others think about it.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been doing it for a long time. Every year we add something new. We have to keep developing the platform. Next year, we\u2019re going to be into our version of anti-aging. We\u2019re going to have a children\u2019s wellness called \u2018Grow with Six Senses\u2019. We\u2019re rolling out \u2018Eat Now\u2019. It\u2019s all under the same umbrella<\/p>\n

Even our sustainability activities. Actually, sustainability and wellness are the same thing today. Five years ago, we had the sustainability department and the wellness department. It\u2019s the same thing. For us, it\u2019s a huge passion, and we believe that it\u2019s important to our customers. If someone can leave our hotels in a better place than when they arrived, even in a small way, then we\u2019ve done our job.<\/p>\n

Do your rooms have bio-light features to help clients fall asleep in a natural way?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

We do some of that, not all of it. We talk about bio-filling design, and that\u2019s about bringing outside into the room and nature. We even have equipment along with our sleep programs that work with light and sound to wake you up very slowly and gently. Absolutely\u2014I love all that.<\/p>\n

How do you manage a consistent standard of clean food and health across your different destinations?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

We can\u2019t produce the same level of quantity, but on the other hand, in New York, I can buy organic food that comes from 10 km away. When I\u2019m in Vietnam, I need to do more work myself. In New York, it was very important to me that we have a rooftop garden. We got the rooftop, and the developers said \u201cLet\u2019s do a pool. That\u2019s what everyone does. Do the swimming pool with the rooftop with a bar.\u201d I said, \u201cNo, let\u2019s do an organic farm with a bar.\u201d It\u2019s the brand. It\u2019s facing the Hudson River, so you\u2019ve got the water view, you\u2019ve got the Highline, and I said, \u201cWe\u2019ll do incredible functions on this roof. We\u2019ll do dinners for 50 people with one garden\u201d. They said, \u201cOk, let\u2019s do it.\u201d So the thinking is changing, but not everybody sees that because they\u2019re stuck\u2014most people are stuck. Most people would say, \u201cYou have to have the pool because people expect the pool.\u201d I said, \u201cExactly, that\u2019s the reason not to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes it takes a while to change old thinking. There is some organic farming in Brooklyn, for example, on the roof. But nobody\u2019s really done it in Manhattan. When you talk to Manhattan people, to them, Brooklyn people are crazy druggie hippies. No one has said, \u201cLet\u2019s do this in Lower Manhattan,\u201d so maybe we\u2019re the first, and once we\u2019ve done it, other people will do it. It\u2019s a process. There are some great organic restaurants, but a lot of the food comes from upstate New York.<\/p>\n

What are the most challenging issues today for Six Senses Hotels in the luxury market?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

We go to some pretty difficult places to function, so it\u2019s difficult to find the right kind of like-minded people who intuitively understand the brand. I don\u2019t care if people know how to make the bed or don\u2019t know how to make a bed. We can teach that. But you need people who feel the DNA of the company, and that\u2019s not always easy. It\u2019s changing. We\u2019re going into Israel into the desert. Israel is an incredible country, but they don\u2019t have a service culture because they\u2019ve been worrying about more important things than how to serve the coffee. So to find and develop the right talents\u2014that\u2019s hard.<\/p>\n

Management is easier to find, but it\u2019s more challenging to find the day-to-day junior-level jobs. We need exciting people who are passionate about what they\u2019re doing. As we get more and more known, we see people questioning, \u201cWhat am I doing at Marriott? What am I doing at Sheraton?\u201d and who want more purpose in their lives.<\/p>\n

I wanted more purpose in my life. When I left Four Seasons, I loved the brand; it was my family, and they\u2019re still my family, but I didn\u2019t want to do just another luxury hotel. I don\u2019t have a problem with luxury hotels, but I wanted to do upscale hotels that were more purposeful that had a narrative around it and that would improve people\u2019s lives in a little way or a big way\u2014just to do something that was a little more important than just doing luxury hotels. There\u2019s enough of them in the world. That was for me very personal, so I look for people who are at the same stage of their lives. It sounds very religious; it\u2019s not religious, it was just what I wanted to do.<\/p>\n

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Six senses – Bhutan – Lodge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n