Hotel Gyms, Fitness & Sports Activities with Dimitris Issaris of Sani & IKOS Resorts
Talking luxury resort sports, gyms and fitness
Dimitris Issaris is Director of Sports & Recreation for Sani Resort in Greece and for all IKOS Resorts, currently in Greece with new properties under development in Spain and Portugal.
He has broad experience across the hotel fitness and hospitality industries, with knowledge of hotel management, strategic planning and business development.
As a Director at SANI Resort he is responsible for managing the Rafa Nadal Tennis Centre, Chelsea Football Academy and Bear Grylls Survival Academy as well as the newly launched Sani Triathlon Academy. In addition, he oversees all the hotel gyms (managing hotel gym consultants, like us!) and the daily wellness program for guests.
In this conversation we discuss hotel gyms, hotel fitness, sports brand partnerships and more.
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Biofit gym consultants: What piece of advice has served you best in your career so far Dimitris?
Dimitris: They say if you cannot walk, you cannot fly. My work philosophy is that we should always remember first how to walk in order to be able to fly better later on.
Biofit gym consultants: How do you develop the new sports facilities for SANI and IKOS? What is the process involved in that part of your role?
The most important thing is to feel the pulse of the guests needs first but also the market and sometimes to be maybe one step ahead of them both.. that may mean taking a risk with unforeseen results but if you don’t try you won’t succeed. In my job, with a brand like SANI, that has been recognised many times as one of the world’s leading luxury resorts, especially for its sports offer, we cannot afford not to take risks!
Biofit gym consultants: How do you create your program of group wellness classes and fitness class at SANI and IKOS resorts? Do you believe in market research, or do you prefer to propose classes first and then test guest reactions to them?
The most popular activities are the ones that are easy and accessible such as aqua aerobics, basically we can say anything in the pool is usually a success, for example aqua pilates often has 20-30 people per session.
If we dig a little deeper into that data though, we see that these high attendance figures are mainly because our guests are in the pool already, so it is an easy decision for them to join a class.
We also saw that if we provide something extraordinary such as archery for example, a unique experience in other words, the our guests want to try that too. If it is an activity that they would not normally have the opportunity to try in their daily life at home, it is likely to be a success. The same goes for the adventure park we built at SANI, for example.
Biofit gym consultants: How do you evaluate the success of your sports facilities? What measurements are available to you?
A lot of things. We keep daily statistics of course so every month we review this to see what activities were more or less popular. We also have guest reviews from the rooms, that is a very useful source of direct feedback, as well as reviews through TripAdvisor online of course.
Biofit gym consultants: Part of your strategy has been to work with famous international brands such as Rafa Nada and Chelsea Football Club, do those partnerships represent value on investment for the brand?
Sani and IKOS are leading the family luxury hospitality sector for many years, if we want to create something beyond the competition we need to work with the very best available, there is no room for compromise. This can be challenging of course because these partner brands can be much bigger than our own brand but this is also a plus in a way as we improve internally through these partnerships, we have to raise our own standards as well, at an operational level for example, in order to integrate these external partners successfully. I can say that this has been extremely positive for us, both as a team and in terms of the guest experience we offer.
Biofit gym consultants: What have you enjoyed most over the last years in your job?
To see activities such as our daily yoga classes and guided nature jogging receive such positive guest feedback is very rewarding for me personally, it is always a pleasure to see these programs so well received.
In terms of major projects, our cooperation with Rafa Nadal was my responsibility from the beginning and it has been an amazing success for me and for the company, I am really proud of that. Through this type of cooperation we explore new destinations, meet new people that otherwise we would never have the chance to connect with and take our guest experience to the next level.
Biofit gym consultants: Looking ahead, what new projects you are developing for the next few years?
Of course we have a full upgrade program going on at the moment for our resort gyms, that’s why we have the cooperation with Biofit on a three-year contract, covering three main areas: sustainability, eco-friendly materials and the creation of something unique, completely out of the ordinary that will give the guests a real experience rather than just a regular gym offer. We want it to be a unique resort gym experience. So no pressure Matt!
Biofit gym consultants: What advice would you give to someone looking to work in hotel sports, gyms and recreation?
A combination of sports and hotel management experience is best, you need a passion for this type of job, to feel things from a guest perspective.
Again though, you need to go step by step, you cannot make a big jump to the top, so start educating yourself with fitness activities but also look for ways to engage with the design process of resort fitness facilities, sports budget planning, people management… it can be a long road but if you take the right steps at the right time you will succeed.
Finally, always be open to socializing with people in your industry and speak with guests if there are opportunities to do so, be sure to travel a lot to explore new hotel sports ideas and resort activities in order to keep in touch with the market and understand what guests want, or even what they will want in the future.