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Stepping into SIRO’s “Recovery Lab” feels more like walking into a space station than a spa: with cryogenic chambers, non-contact vibroacoustic therapy beds and an MRI-like infrared capsule, the vibe is more medical than calming.
“The industry is evolving,” says Desmond Corley, hotel manager at SIRO One Za’abeel, which bills itself as Dubai’s first fitness hotel, catering to professional athletes and fitness-focused lifestyles and was designed in consultation with AC Milan football club, Olympic swimmer Adam Peaty and boxer Ramla Ali.
The 2,000-square-foot gym is packed with state-of-the-art equipment to track and analyze performance, smart scales, body composition tools, and apps to help guests customize their stay from nutrition to training, while rooms come equipped with alarm clocks and anti-gravity rocking chairs that are linked to guests’ circadian rhythms, and the Recovery Lab offers treatments that prioritize muscle recovery over relaxation.
“One example is cryotherapy, which is effective in reducing inflammation and boosting metabolism,” Corey said, adding that people should generally try ice baths before trying the freezing chamber, which is cooled to minus 85 degrees Celsius (minus 121 degrees Fahrenheit).
Another “cool space-age tech” is the MLX i3Dome, which “uses far-infrared technology for muscle pain,” Corey says. This kind of light therapy has its roots in NASA’s experiments with red light therapy in the 1990s to promote plant growth in space and help astronauts’ wounds heal. Since then, the therapy has been studied for a variety of uses, most recently in skin care. The “dome” acts as a sauna, while the light therapy helmet offers a no-touch facial, with red light for collagen production, green light for antibacterial cleaning, and blue light for “problem skin” like eczema, psoriasis, and acne.
Rebecca Cairns/CNN
The helmet offers a no-touch facial, using red light for collagen production, green light for anti-bacterial cleansing, and blue light for “problem skin” such as eczema, psoriasis and acne.
These are specialized therapies rarely found outside of boutique clinics, and certainly not in most hotels, where fitness and wellness are often treated as an “afterthought,” even in five-star hotels, Corey said.
But wellness is now a global, multi-trillion dollar industry, and brands such as SIRO (and its parent company, Kerzner International) are building this into the foundation of their hospitality concepts. The Dubai store is just the beginning: SIRO’s Boka Place in Montenegro is opening later this year, and construction is already underway for three more stores.
“Everyone has a unique physiology, different health goals and different aspirations,” says Corley. “Everything we do is about optimizing performance and improving recovery time to get individuals back doing what they love, whether that’s on the football pitch, the tennis court or the gym.”
Beth McGroarty, research director at the Global Wellness Institute, said this tech-centric wellness is a big difference from the “goopy decade” of yoga, crystals and green juice detoxes.
“This has been popularized by billionaire tech bros chasing, in some cases, $2 million-a-year cures to fight death,” McGroarty says of the emerging “ultra-medical, very high-tech, very complicated” hard-care trend. Known as “biohacking,” the trend includes longevity clinics, where people try to lower their biological age, and weight-loss drugs like Ozempic.
One factor driving this trend is the pandemic, which has not only created a need for “touchless” care but also a desire for more scientific health solutions, McGroarty said.
But high tech isn’t necessarily scientific: “Some of it feels quasi-scientific,” McGroarty says, citing fortified foods as an example. Outside of a doctor-prescribed setting, there is little evidence to support the effectiveness of the infusions. “Sometimes I wonder if there’s a bit of science being smeared,” she adds.
SIRO isn’t the only one targeting sporty travelers with high-tech therapies: Health club group Equinox opened a high-tech flagship hotel in New York City in 2019 and plans to open 33 properties over the next decade. Acclaimed medical wellness retreats SHA Wellness and Clinique La Prairie are both expanding beyond their European flagships, with the latter opening an “urban longevity hub” at One&Only One Zabeel, a few floors above SIRO in Dubai.
SIRO One Zabeel
Cryotherapy reduces inflammation and helps muscles recover after exercise.
And while no one might be running a cryogenic chamber every night at home, data-driven health monitoring is quickly becoming the norm: Most smartwatches will be able to collect medical-grade information, like heart rate, sleep patterns and blood oxygen levels, and these wearables will become “increasingly more sophisticated” and sophisticated, such as the Oura ring, an inconspicuous tracker that looks like jewelry, McGroarty said.
With the increasing accessibility of generative artificial intelligence, McGroarty sees even greater potential for smart diagnostics, but adds that we need to set boundaries and evaluate where it might be useful. “We underestimate the stress and anxiety that comes from being constantly connected to work, the news, misinformation and social media,” she adds.
But not everyone is on board with this high-tech approach to health.
While “hard care” is growing in wellness, “soft care” is growing as well. In rejecting the hyper-optimized, hyper-commoditized wellness routines of the past decade, McGroarty sees more people, particularly Gen Z and millennial women, embracing “super lo-fi, low-key wellness” that prioritizes social experiences and emotional well-being, like “bed rot” and “hot girl walks.”
“People are spending the most on their health and they want radical simplicity,” she added.
Rebecca Cairns/CNN
Vibroacoustic therapy is like a high-tech gong bath: a waterbed delivers vibrations throughout the body for a non-touch massage, while noise-cancelling headphones immerse you in a world of soothing, meditative sounds.
Even at SIRO, which is equipped with cutting-edge technology, Corey has observed an increased interest in mindfulness activities such as meditation. “Historically, our group exercise schedules have been dominated by strength and cardiovascular classes. Now we’re seeing more mindfulness classes like yoga and sound healing,” Corey says.
Of course, at SIRO there is a high-tech alternative: Vibroacoustic Therapy, a sci-fi version of a gong bath. You lie down on a massage table with a waterbed in the middle, put on noise-cancelling headphones and listen to carefully arranged sounds of lapping waves against a hypnotic synthesizer background. The waterbed vibrates in time with the sound, It releases stress within the body and SIRO says it is designed for people suffering from sleep disorders, stress, depression and anxiety.
Technology that offers relief from everyday stress may seem like overkill, but for SIRO, health data integration is the future of wellness, providing guests with data-driven, personalized wellness programs.
“We want to use technology as a facilitator, not a hindrance,” Corey says.
