Parallax Helps Hotels to Embrace Wellness Concepts

ATLANTA—In case you haven’t noticed, wellness is trending in a big way in the hospitality industry. Parallax Wellness + Hospitality, a partner in bringing hospitality brand concepts to life for hotels and other real estate development projects, has always been focused on health and well-being.

“My hospitality wellness journey started with developing, launching, and expanding the EVEN Hotels brand for IHG,” said Adam Glickman, principal of Parallax Wellness + Hospitality. “Right now, I’m particularly proud to mention the work we’re doing for RISE Costa Rica, an 800-acre planned resort-residential-wellness community, and its first operational stage—the amazing glamping retreat Kinkára, which is open for groups and transient guests. Another great project I’m working on right now is the development and launch of Compass Hotels for Margaritaville Hotels & Resorts, an upscale boutique select-service concept offering a fresh way for guests to relax, rejuvenate, and escape the everyday.”

Adam Glickman, principal, Parallax Wellness + Hospitality

With over 20 years in the hospitality industry, Glickman has a passion for creating premium, distinctive, and wellness-forward brand concepts. He helps non-hospitality wellness companies navigate the “intersection of wellness and hospitality to capture their share of the massive and fast-growing wellness tourism economy—$639 billion annually, and growing at twice the pace of tourism overall.”

Glickman named his company after the effect, a parallax, where an object’s positioning and direction of movement differ based on the distance and angle from which you view it.

“At Parallax Wellness + Hospitality, we help companies look differently at their businesses, offering new perspectives and guidance towards opportunities for revenue growth,” said Glickman.

To assist hospitality companies in succeeding in the wellness category, Parallax provides business strategy and project leadership for hotels, brands, and owners, with wellness always being considered as part of the offerings.

“We believe that wellness should fit in naturally and where appropriate, based on many factors such as the project location and needs of the target customer,” he said. “To that end, we position ourselves as a goals-oriented extension of our client’s in-house team over a discrete time period to lay out a business strategy, develop plans for priority projects, or accelerate completion of projects on their roadmap.”

Glickman outlined the firm’s two primary services related to wellness and branding:

  • “We create and build wellness new concepts from the ground up,” he said. “Our work here includes wellness concept design and programming, new brand/hotel concept creation, guest experience development, project leadership and owner’s representation, hotel/spa management company selection, profitability analysis, and feasibility studies.”
  • “We refine and reposition existing properties and brands to increase revenue through wellness differentiation,” he said. “This includes brand repositioning, new wellness programming, guest experience and service improvement, competitive analysis, profitability analysis and feasibility studies, renovation guidance, sales & marketing advice, project leadership, owner’s representation.”

For hotel companies that are just now waking up to the idea of wellness as an important demand generator and are ready to capture some of that demand, Glickman has this advice: “Jump on in. The water’s fine.”

He urges companies to recognize that not every hotel brand or property needs to be a “wellness hotel,” but that there’s opportunity at every price point and in every market to use wellness as a differentiator.

“Several studies have shown that consumers are increasingly choosing hotels based on their wellness amenities, even on business and leisure trips where wellness is not the primary reason for travel,” he said. “Small changes in amenities, service offerings, and sales & marketing positioning can go a long way to distinguish a hotel or brand in a crowded marketplace. This is also true in the groups and meetings space, where corporate organizers and meeting planners are looking for wellness elements to drive productive learning and networking environments.”

Parallax client RISE Costa Rica had a vision to convert a mountainside into a resort-residential-wellness community, but had limited experience in bringing a project of this scale to fruition.

“We helped them update their business roadmap to create a clear plan for their team to follow and have provided support for ongoing fundraising,” he said. “This has included developing a comprehensive business strategy and investor prospectus, modifying and elaborating the project’s wellness brand positioning in conjunction with an outside branding agency, establishing customer journey and guest experience differentiation points for various aspects of the resort and residential wellness community, and completing a feasibility analysis for the project’s resort component and aligning financial projections for various phases of the development project with ownership goals. Elements of the roadmap have been followed to advance several aspects of the project, including completion of sitework for the residential community and launch of their luxury tenting camp, Kinkára. We can’t wait to see how it continues to grow.”