The Wellness in Hospitality Podcast

Who is writing your story?  Whether you choose to write it or not, the story of your hotel is already being written. Every decision you make, from every hire, every price you approve, every conflict you avoid, to every partnership you sign, is a sentence on the page of your next chapter. The only question is whether you're holding the pen, or letting the story happen to you.  Most boutique ho...

Who do you want by your side as you build the world that doesn't exist yet?  There is an inn on a remote island off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. Four times the size of Manhattan. Only 2,500 people live there. The nearest city is hours away.  By every rule of conventional hospitality logic, it should not be one of the most sought-after destinations in the world.  And yet, Fogo Island Inn...

What if the reason your hotel isn't standing out isn't because you need a better product, better marketing, or better guest experience?  What if it's because you're still building for the people who already know you instead of the people who need you?  In this episode, I explore why the most remarkable destinations aren't created by following categories, trends, or industr...

What if the thing holding your hotel back isn't a lack of strategy, funding, or capability?  What if it's a vision that isn't bold enough?  In this episode, I share a story from my childhood about a hotel owner in Kenya who insisted on building what everyone said was impossible: a hanging swimming pool suspended over the hotel entrance with no visible support beams. Every single per...

Most hotels focus on creating a better stay.  Disney focuses on creating a stronger emotional connection.  And that subtle makes all the difference.  In this episode, I explore what the hospitality industry can learn from Walt Disney and why I believe many of us have become so focused on luxury that we've forgotten something far more powerful: wonder.   While writing the first chapter of my s...

You have tried everything.  You brought in a new therapist and a seasoned wellness director. You redesigned the menu. You invested in equipment you were told would make the difference. And you are still sitting here, looking at a wellness offering that is not performing the way you need it to perform.  The frustrating part is not that things aren't working. The frustrating part is that you do...

Think about your most loyal returning guests, the ones who come back year after year, without a discount, without a loyalty programme, without being chased.  Now ask yourself honestly: why are they coming back? It's not your brand. It's a person, a special place, an indescribable feeling that exists nowhere else on earth.  That distinction is key. Because if you're trying to grow yo...

What if the belief that you genuinely care about your team is the very thing stopping you from ever changing anything?  Today I want to talk about how a thought, a well-intentioned, completely sincere thought, can become the most expensive belief in your business.  A few years ago I sat in a meeting with a hotel manager. She'd called me in to review my therapist manning. I'd asked for ex...

When did you last walk through your own hotel as a guest?  Not as the owner who knows every corridor, every staff member, every shortcut it took to build the place.   But as the guest who saved for this trip, planned it months in advance, and arrived with one simple expectation: to be looked after.  Most hotel owners would struggle to answer that question honestly. And that gap, between the experi...

I stopped giving clients what they asked for a long time ago.  Because what they asked for and what they were ready to build were almost never the same thing.  This episode is the filter I use to close that gap before it costs you everything.  I had a client. Twenty years earlier I had built her wellness concept from scratch. It was very unique. Two decades later she came back. Things had become u...

There is a particular kind of hotel that wins every award, gets featured in every design magazine, and is completely forgotten by its guests six months after they leave.  And there is another kind, one much less impressive on paper, that guests carry with them for decades.  The difference is not budget, nor is it design. It is not even service.  It is where the hotel was built from.  In this episo...

 Some of the least “well” experiences don’t happen outside of wellness, they happen inside it. And some of the most powerful moments of wellbeing? They have nothing to do with a spa at all. While researching for my book, I was asked to audit two hotel properties, something I usually avoid. Because there is nothing worse than a bad wellness experience. Not just emotionally, but physically, when a t...

Most of the “great” experiences we invest so much time, money, and energy into are forgotten.  So what actually makes something stay?  In this episode, I take you into a defining memory from my childhood in Nairobi, watching my father, a structural engineer, obsess over what seemed like an impossible task: building a swimming pool that extended out of a hotel building (basically, a “hanging” swimm...

What if the reason your hotel isn’t performing at the level you'd like it to has nothing to do with your team but with the system they’re working inside?  In this episode, I take you inside a shift that has fundamentally changed how I see hotel performance.  For years, like most in hospitality, I believed better people would create better results. A stronger GM. A more experienced team. More...

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...

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...

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 stewa...

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 hospital...

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...

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...

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 a...

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 th...

Wellness doesn’t fail because leaders aren’t capable.  It fails because the system still relies on heroes instead of governance.  For more than two decades, I’ve watched highly capable wellness leaders carry broken systems on their backs in hotels, spas, and now in consulting. And when they burn out or move on, the entire operation quietly collapses.    That’s not a leadership problem.  That’s a d...

Most wellness concepts don’t fail because they lack beautiful facilities or trending treatments.  They fail because they were built from the top of the iceberg down, not from the base up. Over the years, I’ve worked with wellness founders, hotel owners, and consultants who deeply care about doing wellness properly. Their intention is solid. Their belief in wellness is genuine. And yet, many still...

Wellness has had its growth spurt.    But growth alone doesn’t create legacies.    In this episode, I share why 2026 marks a quiet but powerful shift in the wellness and hospitality industry, and why the next decade won’t be led by those chasing trends, but by those who’ve earned the right to design what endures.    As I closed 2025 and stepped into 2026, I found myself reflecting on more than two...