Can Hotels Make It Easier To Stay Healthy?

I spent the night at a hotel for the first time in several months and was reminded of the challenges of staying healthy on the road. There’s the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffets, the steady beckoning of room service, and an unfamiliar, often limited, fitness center. Some hotels have taken some steps to keep you healthy:

- In-Room Fitness Rentals: For years, several hotel chains have offered guests the chance to request selected fitness equipment, allowing them to work out in the privacy of their rooms

- Activity-Based Fitness: A hotel in Copenhagen has experimented with allowing guests to generate electricity (and earn a free meal) by pedaling a bike for 15 minutes, shrinking both your waistline and carbon footprint. While fitness isn’t the primary goal, building it into an activity takes away the stigma of “working out”

There are several hurdles for hotels. Most visitors are either busy or see their stay as an escape from their regular routine. There’s also limited upside for hotels – people don’t focus on amenities to decide where to stay (I’d imagine luxury or price are the main factors) and hotels make money off food and drinks, which could be cannibalized by health and fitness programs. However, there could be some opportunities with limited cost:

- In-room fitness is only available at selected hotels – expanding this option across entire chains and geographies would be low investment and create greater brand consistency and experience. There could also be small pamphlets in each room describing easy exercises using in-room furniture

- On the flip side, for people who are more social, hotels might provide classes or other programs (e.g., organized hikes, city walking tours) that can connect visitors on the road and motivate them to eat healthier or workout together

- Health magazines and websites list their favorite hotels for fitness, but there might be an opportunity for an organization (e.g., American Heart Association) put develop a certification process, similar to LEED, that tells consumers which hotels meet certain health standards (i.e., combination of fitness and healthy eating options)

Can Celebrities and Healthcare Coexist?

CVS Caremark recently partnered with Salma Hayak to introduce Nuance, a series of beauty products based on a unique family recipe. This is the first time a retail pharmacy has partnered with a celebrity to promote beauty products and could be a game changer in this market.

With that being said, is there an opportunity to use celebrities as an education / awareness tool for healthcare? From a consumer perspective, using trusted celebrity names to endorse healthier behavior or understanding benefits could catch consumers’ attention more than standard campaigns. For a celebrity, this type of philanthropic / public service work could bring goodwill and require minimal effort.

The most obvious approach would be to use older stars to talk with seniors and Medicare recipients. However, insurers could also partner with national organizations that tackle various social health issues (e.g., childhood obesity, diabetes) and utilize their celebrity contributors to promote healthy behavior. While it creates an indirect link to an insurer or health organization, the brand recognition through these endorsements (assuming the celebrity continues to be credible) could bring significant value. It might be cheesy for Justin Bieber to tweet about taking your vitamins, but there’s no doubt it would be powerful.

Should Healthcare Companies Target Pet Owners?

This week, I'm house sitting an adorable hound. I never had a four-legged pet growing up and this is the first time I've had a dog for a longer period of time. Even though I'm several decades behind most people, this first experience is living up to expectations - it can be a pain altering my schedule to feed and walk Lily, but the affection and energy she has more than makes up for it.

The health benefits of owning a pet are pretty clear. Physically, having to take her out every four hours, especially up and down my three-story walk up, keeps me moving. Emotionally, the companionship is a great outlet and can melt away stress in an instant.

I'm surprised that health insurance companies haven't taken more advantage of these relationships. There are easy ways to incorporate this information (e.g., pet ownership as a factor in setting premiums), but there could be other opportunities:

- Partnerships: Could health insurance companies partner with pet retail stores or other animal groups to promote their services within the pet community?

- Pet Insurance: The market for pet insurance is growing - I'm surprised this hasn't been pursued more aggressively especially given 1) a similar, somewhat overlapping business model and 2) these members would likely be more healthy and profitable

- Targeted Messaging: If companies were to collect information about pet ownership, there's an opportunity to create a new segment to target messaging and opportunities

Do We Need More Dedicated Health Devices?

A lot has been made of product convergence with smartphones becoming more powerful and ubiquitous. Cramming more features into a single device allows the user to do more without sacrificing comfort or accessibility. However, it's a very passive experience and, for all the badges and alerts a program may provide, the user still needs to be motivated to visit the app or access the features. This becomes even more difficult as more information gets packed on these devices.

That's why the Jawbone Up catches my attention. Despite the bad reviews, we may be reaching a tipping point where people revisit the value of dedicated devices. Up could be successful because, by decoupling the device from the phone (since smartphones arguably have the same features), it's a constant reminder that you're being monitored, and may motivate someone to make better health decisions (e.g., walk more, sleep at the appropriate times). Similar to a Prius, Jawbone may also be banking on the social signal component - wearing this demonstrates how much you care about your health.

With that being said, there are some adoption challenges. Right now, this will only appeal to the health conscious who arguably benefit less. However, if the type of technology becomes cheap enough, I could also see widespread use by insurance companies to motivate and monitor, similar to the Progressive Insurance Snapshot program. There are clearly privacy and social issues, so we'll have to see how successful their program is.

However, the idea of dedicated devices has always interested me. For example, instead of being cluttered with other smartphone apps, could insurance companies distribute a flexible e-ink card that explains benefits and provides tips for healthy behavior?