Photographer and art director Bukunmi Grace was between work trips when she booked a stay at Soho Warehouse in Downtown LA. That’s when she realized she could take Pilates classes at the hotel.
Grace — who jokingly refers to herself as a “fake workout girlie” — says having access to Pilates (even better that it was complimentary) was the cherry on top of the hotel’s amenities.
“Even when I have a place in LA, sometimes I’ll still stay at Warehouse just because it’s a nice staycation with a pool, gym, sauna, spa… and they do your laundry for you,” she told Business Insider.
“Pilates classes are not cheap,” Grace continued. “It’s super helpful to be able to experience something without having to shell out a few hundred bucks.”
Grace is just one of many travelers experiencing the latest shift in how hotels are trying to get and keep guests. Today, luxury properties are betting that reformer Pilates on-site will appeal to Gen Z and millennial travelers, who are often prioritizing wellness and planning vacations around health routines. Hotels see on-site studios as both a coveted amenity and a new revenue stream.
“We were looking for unique hooks,” Bill Doak, managing director for The Aster in Hollywood, told Business Insider.
The hotelier, who has been doing reformer Pilates himself for the past 15 years, pushed his team to build a studio. It started off slow, testing a mini version with three reformers, available only to the hotel’s corresponding members club.
That gave proof of concept enough that in April, the Aster debuted a proper reformer Pilates studio available to hotel guests at no extra charge. Routine classes are indeed a financial investment, with the average group reformer class costing anywhere from $40 to more than $100 for private sessions.
“We moved what had been our yoga studio, flip-flopped the rooms, and bought eight studio reformers. We put those into what had been the yoga room,” Doak added. “Now, we’re able to offer more classes.”
“To me, [reformer pilates] signals that a hotel knows what is current in the wellness industry. Yes, the gym will be nice, and there will be reformers, but it also signals that the hotel is going to have the kind of milk I want or the kind of food I want,” Liz Chen, a NYC-based Pilates instructor at Tera, told Business Insider after her trip to Auberge’s Chileno Bay Resort, where she took an on-site reformer class. “It’s just a good indicator.”
One hotel spent $30,000 to keep up with the wellness trend
Reformer Pilates differs from yoga and the mat Pilates classes that many hotels already offer. It’s a low-impact, full-body workout that builds core strength, balance, flexibility, and stability through controlled movements rather than heavy weights. The key difference is the reformer machine, which uses a sliding carriage, springs, and straps to add resistance and support.
Reformers require more investment from hotels, with the nicest machines in the $5,000 ballpark, rather than a handful of $100 yoga mats. The Aster team, for example, spent $30,000 for its eight machines from the Australian brand Your Reformer.
“That was not cost-prohibitive,” Doak said, especially because the team already had the space. “The barrier came after the fact: Just like reformers are in high demand, so are Pilates instructors.”
After some trial and error, the managing director finally found a trainer within his network to bring in as the hotel’s trainer.
This was the opposite case for The Ritz-Carlton Key Biscayne, Miami, which debuted a reformer Pilates studio at its property, housed on the barrier island minutes from Miami, in a partnership with Tremble, a Pilates studio with locations across the US.
“There wasn’t a reformer Pilates studio on the island of Key Biscayne, and so we got talking with Tremble, and they thought it was a great idea too,” Ritz-Carlton market general manager Derek Flint said.
Before Tremble came into the Ritz-Carlton’s Key Biscayne space, it was an infrequently used studio dedicated to virtual fitness classes.
“We turned it into a spin class studio, but it’s never been as used as it is now. We were hoping this was going to be a huge amenity for our guests, but the word got out within the local community, and the local community has really embraced it,” Flint said.
Tremble covered the equipment and staffing costs, and it became a revenue generator for both Tremble and the hotel since classes are not complimentary for guests.
Pilates studios are becoming an additional revenue stream for some hotels
The Aster’s Doak said the studio on his property has already proven itself to be “a marketable amenity,” and he’s having to keep persuading his team to keep classes free for guests. The Aster only charges for no-shows.
“When you start to do the nickel-and-diming thing to people, it can become a sour experience,” he added.
The St. Regis Chicago, which opened its Pilates studio in November 2025, has already had to double its instructor team to accommodate demand. “While we were confident there would be interest, the pace of growth and level of engagement exceeded our expectations,” St. Regis Chicago director of wellness Kerri Stokes said in a statement.
Adding a studio can be a win-win for hotels like the St. Regis, which does not offer complimentary classes to guests because the studio is now a revenue generator while improving the experience for guests and locals. “The studio supports guest satisfaction, member retention, and reinforces our commitment to providing a best-in-class wellness experience,” the statement continued.
There’s no clear trend geographically on which hotels are adding reformer Pilates studios — they’ve been popping up all over the world in big cities like Chicago and resort towns like Hilton Cancún — but location does matter for how someone is experiencing the class, whether they’re getting a workout in before going to lie out by the pool or before going into a big client presentation.
“If you can be in this beautiful setting and be able to do your favorite workout and not lose progress on investing into your own health and wellness, that’s a really great added bonus,” Chen said.
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