 "Britain’s Zedwell hotels feature small, dimly lit “cocoons” (from about $142, per person) without distraction: no TVs, no phones and, actually, no windows, which for a certain kind of bad sleeper could provoke more anxiety")
By Carla Sosenko
To sleep, perchance to dream. Or if not dream, at least to feel vaguely rested the next day, especially on vacation. Is that too much to ask?
In the hospitality world, that’s a business opportunity. Hilton’s 2024 trends report revealed that the main reason people currently travel is to rest and recharge.
“Hotels locked in a death match with Airbnb have begun to explore ways in which to compete by offering services and amenities around the primary purpose of a hotel stay: a restful night’s sleep,” said Chekitan Dev, a professor at the Cornell University Nolan School of Hotel Administration.
Now, he said, a good night’s rest isn’t just a selling point for hotels; it’s a “fast-growing industry.”
From AI-assisted beds to on-call hypnotherapists, today’s sleep tourism is, essentially, an old dog with new tricks. “This is around the seventh or eighth time this has come up as kind of a topic” since the mid-1980s, said Bjorn Hanson, a professor at the New York University Jonathan M Tisch Center of Hospitality.
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These days hotels are going well beyond those basics to capture the business of sleep seekers. Here’s what some are doing.
Smart beds and Smart Goggles
Like the Westin Heavenly Bed, Bryte wants to be the next hotel-mattress disrupter. The $6,299 AI-assisted, smartphone-pairable mattress is, according to Luke Kelly, the chief executive of Bryte, the only bed with an active pressure-relief system, which adjusts as you move to optimise sleep.
The Park Hyatt New York currently has five Bryte sleep suites (from $1,095), which were added after the hotel reopened following a 376-day Covid closure. The Park Hyatt Chicago has the similar Bryte-bed-equipped Mindful-ness Suite ($645), as do a handful of rooms and suites at hotels
With the Sleep Wellness package at the Beatrice in Providence, (starting at $419 per night), you’ll have to settle for a Serta Perfect Sleeper, but will have access to Therabody SmartGoggles, an eye mask that uses heat, and vibration to lower your heart rate and ease facial tension. The package also includes a mocktail at the rooftop bar (alcohol is an enemy of good sleep) and herbal teas.
Retreats and other programmes
At spa at the Carillon has a five-treatment sleep circuit ($99 per treatment), which employs, among other things, infrared light, electromagnetic frequencies, salt floats and vibration. The resort’s new four-night Sleep Well Retreat ($2,598) includes all of the above, plus a sleep-promoting massage.
‘Cocooning’
Relaxing the mind is common, but how each property tries to accomplish that varies. A visitor at the Park Hyatt said the bedrooms “cocoon” away from the living space, meaning you can close off the sleep area and make it dark and cozy; Britain’s Zedwell hotels feature small, dimly lit “cocoons” (from about $142, per person) with nary a distraction from the window to the wall: no TVs, no phones and, actually, no windows, which for a certain kind of bad sleeper could provoke more anxiety, not less.
Tempo by Hilton is offering rooms divided into three zones, including “an enveloping sleep environment” with a Sealy Accelerate temperature-controlled mattress and sound-absorbing acoustics; lights that dim at sunset; and, in some rooms, Peloton bikes, for people who consider exercise their Ambien.
This month, to coincide with the NSF’s Sleep Awareness Week (March 10 to 16), the Mandarin Oriental will begin a partnership with the hypnotherapist Malminder Gill, a.k.a. the Sleep Concierge, at the Hyde Park property in London. (After Hyde Park, the service will be available at the Mandarin Oriental in Mayfair, which opens this spring, followed by pop-ups across Europe, New York and other destinations later this year.) Starting at £500, guests can see Ms. Gill in the spa for a sleep consultation and session tailored to their particular sleep issues, with Ms. Gill even recommending optimal mealtimes and food-ingestion order. There will also be an option for a private bedside session, during which, if all goes well, guests drift off for the night.
“I tiptoe out,” said Ms. Gill.
The Royal Sonesta Benjamin New York has a similar program, called Rest & Renew, run by Rebecca Robbins, co-author of Sleep for Success! Everything You Must Know About Sleep but Are Too Tired to Ask.
And Hyatt hotels in New Zealand and Australia now feature the Sleep at Hyatt program, with Nancy H. Rothstein, a.k.a. the Sleep Ambassador, as its guru. For $49.50, guests can add a Sleep Ritual Pack (bath salts, eye mask, tea, pulse-point aromatherapy roll-on); for $190, they can purchase a pair of Dreamers, blue-and-green-light glasses that filter out the melatonin-disrupting rays that emanate from screens if you’re a nighttime scroller. Of course, that might mean falling asleep in a pair of specs, which for a chronic tosser-and-turner could be counterproductive.
The experts’ view
What sticks and what doesn’t in this round of sleep tourism remains to be seen. Joseph M. Dzierzewski, vice president for research and scientific affairs at the National Sleep Foundation, wonders why, for example, special sleep amenities aren’t standard in every room.
“The hotel should be providing an environment for people to sleep,” he said. Isn’t that the whole point of a hotel? In addition, “you have to view sleep from a 24-hour time frame.” As important as it is to slumber in a dark room, he said, you also need exposure to bright morning light. “A lot of people forget about how important the day is for your nighttime.”
Dr. Jing Wang, medical director of the Mount Sinai Integrative Sleep Center, thinks the puzzle of better sleep can be solved for most people if they learn what’s at the root of their troubles, whether it’s sleep apnea or psychological issues. Getting educated at a posh resort instead of a hospital sleep lab may sound nice, but the key, she said, is follow-through and follow-up. Without them, there’s little chance for lasting change.
“If you go through the list of our sleep hygiene recommendations — quiet, dark, relax your mind, don’t think about the things that are bothering you during the day — it’s easy for me to say,” Dr. Wang said. But it can be hard for a lot of people to do these things. In that way, sleep tourism makes sense because it allows you to “leave your regular environment and go to one that does incorporate some of these healthy sort of sleep routines,” Dr. Wang said.
Similarly, Mr. Dzierzewski points to one common affliction — getting stuck in a bad-sleep rut — that a short, snooze-centric hotel stay might fix. “Perhaps you just need a hard reset if you’re stuck in a never-ending spiral. Poor sleep begets poor sleep begets poor sleep,” he said. “If you can stop that cycle, perhaps there could be some enduring positive change. But without additional information about how you got in that cycle in the first place, I question whether or not you’ll have any long-term benefit.”
What none of these hotels, mattresses or retreats can do, is permanently remove from your bed smartphones, crying children, mental to-do lists, existential dread and other common sleep thieves.
And of course, not everyone can afford $500 or more to get a good night’s sleep.
©2024 The New York Times News Service
