The Wellness in Hospitality Podcast

Sonal Uberoi
  • 5.0 (1)
  • HEALTH & FITNESS

Get insights firsthand! Join top global wellness expert and author, Sonal Uberoi, as she shares insights from hoteliers all over the world, managing all types of hotels, each with their unique set of challenges (location, owners, regulations, teams, etc.), and learn their wellness in hospitality best practices.

  1. 1D AGO

    154. How Annie Signed Her First 3 Clients in 3 Months Using One Superpower

    You've spent 20 years in this industry. You know your craft. You know your value.   And yet the moment someone asks what you do as a consultant, you launch into a list. Everything you can offer. Everything you've done. Every possible way you could help. The entire kitchen sink.  And the only response you get is silence.  My guest today knows that feeling. Annie Simpson is the founder of Aurora Spa Consulting in Montreal, and my very first Wellness Consultant Blueprint client.   She'd started and stopped her consulting career more times than she'd like to count. COVID. Family. Life. Every time she tried to build something, something pulled her back.  When she finally pressed go, she joined the Blueprint. Within three months she had signed three clients, before she'd even set up her laptop and invoicing system.    You must be wondering, what shifted in her. It’s simple. She stopped offering everything and chose one superpower: designing thermal experiences. The moment she owned that one thing, the right clients came. Word spread. She already has a waitlist, and she's only just getting started.  In this episode, Annie shares her three secrets to success:  1.- Why offering everything is costing you the clients you actually want  2.- How she went from scattered to signed by defining one clear signature offer  3.- What happens — professionally and personally — when you stop resisting your real superpower    By the end of this episode, you'll understand why constraint isn't a limitation. It's the thing that sets you free.

    40 min

  2. MAR 22

    153. The 6 Languages Of Wellbeing In Hospitality

    Most hotels believe they are offering wellness.    But if you look closely, most guests never actually feel it.  I see this all the time in hospitality.  Beautiful spas. Thoughtfully designed spaces. Strong concepts on paper.  And yet…  They’re sitting empty, are underperforming or uninviting.  And the assumption is usually:  “Guests don’t value wellness.”  “There isn’t enough demand.”  But that’s not what’s happening.  Because the intention is there.  The investment is there.  The quality is there.  And still, it doesn’t land.  The problem isn’t that hotels don’t invest in wellness.  The problem is they design it from their own lens, and assume it works for everyone.  And when that happens, you end up with beautiful spaces, strong concepts, but low utilisation.  Guests don’t reject it.    They simply don’t engage with it.  Because just like people don’t feel care in the same way, people don’t experience wellbeing in the same way either.  And yet, most hotels only design for one version of it.  One style.  One entry point.  One interpretation of what wellness should look like.  So if a guest doesn’t connect with that version, they don’t adapt.  Instead, they disengage.    Today, I want to explore 3 things:    1.- Why most wellness offerings don’t translate into real guest experience.  2.- The idea of “languages of wellbeing” and how guests actually experience wellness.  3.- What needs to shift if you want wellness to become something people truly engage with.  By the end of this episode, you’ll start to see that your wellness offering isn’t the problem, it’s how it’s being expressed.

    26 min

  3. MAR 15

    152. The Gap Between Vision And Capacity

    What happens when your vision grows faster than your capacity?  Most people interpret that moment as failure. They think they’re behind. They assume the goal might be unrealistic.  But I’ve learned that when you raise your standard, a gap naturally appears between what you want to create and what your current system can deliver.  That gap isn’t a problem.  It’s the place where leadership and stewardship begins.    In this episode, I share a personal story from my marathon training and how it mirrors exactly what happens when hoteliers try to build a serious wellness offering.    I’m currently training for the Madrid Marathon, a race I run every year.  Last year, something unexpected happened: I got timed out. I still finished the marathon, but I realised that if I wanted a different result, I had to change how I trained.   So I hired a coach (a true ninja who has completed more than 150 ultramarathons) and completely redesigned my training programme.  Instead of simply running more miles, my training now includes:  interval training  hill work  tempo runs  mobility work  strength training  mindset work    In other words, everything about my training has gone up several notches.    But I noticed something interesting.  My training plan was improving much faster than my body could adapt.  My vision had expanded overnight.  My physical capacity had not.  And that’s when I realised something important.    This tension, the gap between vision and capacity, is exactly what many hoteliers experience when they decide to elevate their wellness offering.  The moment you see what’s possible, your vision expands.  But your current systems, teams and capabilities take time to catch up.  In today’s episode, you’ll learn:     1.- Why raising your standards always creates a gap  The moment your vision expands, your capacity does not expand at the same speed. That tension is normal, and it’s part of growth.  2.- The two dangerous reactions leaders have when the gap appears  When leaders feel the tension between vision and capacity, they often do one of two things:  they shrink the vision they push harder and chase shortcuts Neither of those responses solves the real problem.  3.-Why stewardship is about managing the gap  True leadership is not about reacting to the gap.    It’s about building the systems and capabilities that allow your organisation to eventually grow into the vision.    By the end of this episode, I want you to see the gap between vision and capacity differently.  It’s not evidence that your wellness strategy is failing. It’s evidence that you’ve seen what’s possible.  Your job is not to eliminate the gap quickly. Your job is to build the capacity required to grow into that vision.

    27 min

  4. MAR 8

    151. Wellness: Tool Or Instrument?

    Tools remove friction.  Instruments require mastery.    The question is:  Which one is wellness in your hotel?    Because if it’s treated like a tool, it will always remain operational.  If it’s treated like an instrument, it changes how you design, how you lead, and how power moves inside your business.  And most hotels, without realising it, have already chosen.  For years, I’ve watched hospitality struggle with wellness.  We say it’s strategic.  But in meetings, the question is always:  “What should we add?”  Then I came across designer Frank Chimero’s distinction between a tool and an instrument.  A tool removes friction.  An instrument requires mastery.  And that’s when it clicked.  Hotels have approached wellness through efficiency.  Therapist productivity.  Spa occupancy.  Cost control.  Operational streamlining.  Everything is designed to remove struggle.  To make it smoother.  Faster.  More efficient.  If it becomes too complex, we outsource it.  And then we’re surprised when it doesn’t perform the way we imagined.  But mastery doesn’t emerge from optimisation.  Craft doesn’t emerge from efficiency.  An instrument demands practice.  It demands attention.  It demands a willingness to sit with friction long enough to develop depth.  And that’s what we’ve been avoiding.  Wellness is not a set of the most trendy features randomly slapped on.  It is a craft discipline inside hospitality.  And we’ve been managing it like a tool.  No wonder it never becomes the core driver.    In today’s episode, we explore the following 3 things:   1.-  The Hidden Logic Behind How Hotels Approach Wellness  How our obsession with efficiency, productivity, and optimisation has quietly shaped wellness into something operational rather than directional.  2.- Why Depth Cannot Be Automated  Why mastery, distinction, and authority only emerge when we allow space for tension, commitment, and craft.  3.- The Shift From Managing Wellness to Leading It  What changes when wellness moves from something you install to something you steward.    By the end of this episode, you’ll see why wellness never becomes strategic through features alone, and what must shift in your design and leadership if you want it to shape your hotel, not just sit inside it.

    34 min

  5. MAR 1

    150. If You Removed Every Physical Element of Your Wellness Offering, What Would Remain?

    There is no wellness concept in most hotels. There is a wellness space, a wellness team, and a wellness budget.  Those are not the same thing.  I ask every boutique hotel owner I work with one question: if you removed every physical element tomorrow, what would remain?  That answer, or the absence of one, is telling. And once you know what should remain, you can't build wellness any other way.  Here’s why this happens.  Most boutique hotel owners didn't choose their wellness model. A consultant advised on which elements to add. A wellness director was hired to build the treatments, the programming, the experience. And somewhere in between, it was assumed a concept had emerged.  It hadn't. What emerged was an accumulation with someone responsible for making it feel intentional.  That's the hero model. And it was never designed to carry what wellness carries today.  A concept that was never truly designed cannot be truly stewarded. Which means the question was never how to run it better, it was always how to design it properly in the first place.  Because wellness succeeds or fails at the level it is designed. And it endures at the level it is stewarded.  In today’s episode, I’ll help you tackle three questions you've probably never been asked:  1.- Who actually designed your wellness concept?  2.- What would remain if the physical elements disappeared tomorrow?  3.- And if it was never properly designed, where do you actually start?  By the end of this episode, see whether you’ve built a true wellness asset, or just assembled a collection of beautiful parts.

    26 min

  6. FEB 22

    149. Is Your Wellness Offering’s Success Because Of You Or In Spite Of You?

    Smooth seas make every boat look well-built.  Right now, wellness is in calm waters   Revenue is flowing.  Demand is rising.  Investors are confident.  But tailwinds are not strategy.  Is your wellness engineered to endure or it simply being carried by the market?    In this episode, I share a personal lesson from my marathon journey.    For years, I completed one marathon a year. I believed that with discipline and putting the effort in to clock the miles each week, that it was good enough.    Until I got timed out.  That moment revealed the lack of strategy I had.  I wasn’t succeeding because of my training plan.  I was succeeding in spite of it.    Favourable conditions had masked structural flaws.  And once the race tested me properly, those flaws were exposed.  The same pattern is unfolding in wellness today.    Here are the 3 things we’ll cover in today’s episode:    1.-  Why growth in a boom can hide structural weakness  Success does not automatically mean strength. Sometimes it simply means timing.  2.-  The difference between effort and engineering  Passion and momentum can generate early results. But architecture is what creates endurance.  3.- Why the next era of wellness will reward design, not pure effort  As the market matures, only deliberately structured wellness concepts will maintain differentiation and long-term value.    By the end of this episode you’ll see clearly whether your wellness is working because of how it’s designed, or because the market is carrying it.

    29 min

  7. FEB 15

    148. Who Comes Before What In Wellness

    Most boutique hotel owners aren’t adding wellness because they want to.  They’re adding it because they feel they should.  Because wellness is “what the market expects.”  Because everyone else seems to be doing it.  Because not doing it feels like falling behind.    This is the starting point I see again and again.    And it matters more than most people realise.  Because when wellness begins as an obligation rather than a belief, it quietly sets the tone for everything that follows.  Owners invest.  They try to “do it properly.”  They hire experts.  They build facilities.    And yet, something feels off.  What they end up with is a wellness concept that doesn’t feel like them.  It doesn’t align with their vision for the property.  And instead of feeling energising or exciting, it feels heavy.  That’s not an execution problem.  It’s a starting-point problem.    The reason so many wellness concepts struggle is because we begin with the wrong question.  We start with what to build.  What facilities to add.  What trends to follow.  What “proper wellness” is supposed to look like.    Before ever asking who we are as the visionary.    And when wellness isn’t rooted in belief — when the owner doesn’t truly see themselves in the concept — it becomes something that needs to be pushed.    Instead of something that can be stewarded.    After 23 years working in hotel wellness, across boutique properties and larger brands, one thing has become increasingly clear to me:    Who comes before what.  If the visionary doesn’t believe in the wellness concept they’re creating, no amount of optimisation will make it endure.  No team, no consultant, no beautiful facility can compensate for that misalignment.  In this episode, I explore what happens when boutique hotel and retreat owners feel caught between “doing wellness properly” and doing wellness in a way that actually fits who they are, what they value, and what they’re willing to stand behind long-term.    In this episode, I cover three things:    1. Why adding wellness out of obligation creates fragile concepts from the start  When wellness is driven by expectation rather than belief, it becomes something that needs to be pushed not stewarded.  2. The structural mistake of starting with facilities instead of vision  Beginning with spas, gyms, or “proper wellness” before defining the visionary’s point of view is what creates misalignment later.  3. How belief enables stewardship and misalignment makes wellness feel off  Wellness only becomes coherent when the visionary truly believes in what’s been created. Without that, even good ideas struggle to endure.    By the end of this episode, you’ll understand why who you are as the visionary must come before what you build and long before how you execute it.  And why the future of successful wellness concepts won’t belong to those who copy the market best, but to those who are willing to build from belief, alignment, and stewardship.

    34 min

  8. FEB 8

    147. Stop Decorating Wellness Concepts That Were Never Designed

    Who is responsible for designing your wellness offering?  Really, who?    As I’ve been researching and writing my second book, I’ve been revisiting some of the thinking that has shaped how I see wellness leadership and business today. One idea I keep coming back to is first who, then what. It’s the idea that you need the right people on the bus and in the right seats.    But the more I sit with this idea, especially in the context of wellness within hospitality, the clearer it becomes that we’ve skipped a critical step.    We’ve never actually designed the seats.    Wellness is still one of the newest departments in the hotel ecosystem. Because it’s complex, specialist, and often poorly understood, we’ve quietly placed the entire weight of the wellness business onto one person. One leader expected to give the brief, design the concept, stress-test the numbers, activate the experience, and operate it, often without the authority, training, or governance needed to do this sustainably.    To make sense of this, I keep returning to an analogy I know well: buildings.    In construction, the process is clear. An owner provides a brief. An architect designs the whole. Structural and engineering teams ensure the building can stand. Interior teams make it liveable. Operators then maintain and refine it over time. No role is more important than another but no role is expected to do all of them.    In wellness, we’ve blurred these roles completely. We’ve asked one person to sit in every seat at once, and then we’re surprised when the entire system collapses the moment they leave. We hire someone new and expect them to reinvent everything all over again.    This episode is about why wellness doesn’t fail because of people, passion, or effort but because it’s being built without clear design, role clarity, and stewardship.    Here are the 3 things we cover:    1.- Why even great wellness leaders struggle to make wellness work  When roles aren’t defined, capable people end up compensating for structural gaps, and eventually burn out.  2.- How the building analogy reveals what’s missing in wellness governance  From the owner’s brief to concept design, to project specialists, to internal leaders and operators, every role matters, but only when each stays in its lane.    3.- Why wellness succeeds or fails at the level it’s designed, not delivered  No amount of effort, decoration, or operational excellence can fix a concept that was never properly designed in the first place.  By the end of this episode you’ll be able to clearly see where wellness concepts break down, and why asking one person to “hold it all” is the fastest way to undermine both performance and longevity.

    28 min
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Get insights firsthand! Join top global wellness expert and author, Sonal Uberoi, as she shares insights from hoteliers all over the world, managing all types of hotels, each with their unique set of challenges (location, owners, regulations, teams, etc.), and learn their wellness in hospitality best practices.

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