SANI / IKOS GROUP
Portfolio Health & Fitness Strategy
Greece, Spain & Portugal · 2021–2023 (3-year strategic partnership)
Portfolio Fitness Strategy · New Resort Gym Facility Planning · Guest Experience
From individual fitness facilities to a portfolio-wide strategy
Sani/Ikos Group operates a growing portfolio of luxury resorts across the Mediterranean under the Sani Resort and Ikos Resorts brands.
As the group expanded, fitness and active wellness increasingly needed to be considered not simply as individual hotel amenities, but as part of a broader guest experience and future development strategy.
Green Healthy Places principal Matt Morley was retained by Sani/Ikos Group under three consecutive annual consultancy agreements between 2021 and 2023, advising the Director of Sports & Recreation and working across every existing resort in the portfolio, as well as supporting the group on new resort development and longer-term health and fitness strategy.
The relationship evolved from reviewing individual facilities and identifying opportunities for improvement into an ongoing, owner-side advisory role covering portfolio strategy, new concepts, guest experience and the health and fitness components of future developments.
Portfolio fitness strategy
·
Gym facility planning
·
Guest experience
·
Portfolio fitness strategy · Gym facility planning · Guest experience ·
THE CHALLENGE
Creating consistency without standardisation
Sani/Ikos was expanding rapidly at this time before their sale of a majority stake of EUR 2.3bn to the Singapore Sovereign Wealth Fund (GIC) in September 2022, with existing resorts requiring upgrades at the same time as new properties and amenities were being planned.
The objective was not to impose an identical fitness model across every hotel. Different resorts had different physical constraints, guest profiles and opportunities.
Instead, the group needed a strategic framework for continually improving its fitness offer while identifying where new types of activity and wellness spaces could add value to the guest experience.
This meant looking beyond the conventional hotel gym to consider indoor and outdoor fitness, group exercise, yoga, swimming, functional training and activity-led experiences across the wider resort environment.
OUR ROLE
Embedded specialist advisory
Working directly with the Group Director of Sports & Recreation, Matt provided an external specialist perspective across both existing and future properties.
The three-year mandate included:
Portfolio reviews of existing resort gyms and fitness amenities
Recommendations for equipment upgrades and improvements
Identification of opportunities for additional indoor and outdoor fitness facilities
Development of new fitness and activity concepts
Advice on group exercise and outdoor yoga provision
Development of concepts for in-pool activities, including SUP yoga and SUP fitness
Recommendations to improve details of the fitness experience, from group-class music to swimming accessories for performance-oriented guests
Fitness planning and advisory for new resort developments
Early-stage briefing, programming and space-allocation advice for major new facilities
The role sat between strategy, specialist wellness expertise and development advisory, helping the internal team translate broader ambitions into practical physical amenities and guest experiences.
PORTFOLIO DEVELOPMENT
Taking fitness beyond the standard hotel gym
One of the central themes of the work was to identify opportunities for fitness to move beyond enclosed gym spaces and become more integrated into the resort experience, especially in the context of the COVID epidemic.
Over the course of the engagement, Sani/Ikos introduced six new outdoor fitness areas that Matt designed across its resorts, alongside continued investment in its indoor gym portfolio.
Concepts ranged from outdoor training areas and yoga decks to a ‘Sparta Gym’ for adults inspired by obstacle course racing (OCR) at Sani Resort.
This approach allowed physical activity to respond more directly to the Mediterranean setting, making use of landscape, climate and outdoor space rather than treating fitness solely as an indoor amenity.
NEW FACILITY DEVELOPMENT
Embedding fitness earlier in the design process
As the relationship developed, the advisory remit extended into new-build resort projects.
Matt advised on the fitness offer for new properties including Ikos Porto Petro, Ikos Kissamos and the proposed Ikos Cortesia development in Portugal, helping the group consider gym layouts, equipment, facility planning and the evolving expectations of luxury-resort guests during the development process.
At Sani Resort, this expanded into early concept development for a proposed new centralised fitness facility.
Working alongside the Director of Sports & Recreation and in dialogue with the project’s master planners, Gensler, Matt helped develop the initial fitness brief: identifying the sports, activities and training zones that should be accommodated, establishing indicative space requirements and reviewing the emerging concept during its early design stages.
This brought specialist health and fitness thinking into the project before the architectural solution had been fixed, allowing the operational brief to inform the design rather than being fitted into it afterwards.
THE IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS
From recommendations to physical change
The three-year relationship coincided with substantial investment in the group’s fitness offer.
Across the engagement:
All existing resort gyms received equipment upgrades.
At least six new outdoor fitness areas were introduced across Sani and Ikos resorts.
New-build resort gyms were incorporated into the group’s expanding portfolio.
New activity concepts extended fitness into pools, landscapes and outdoor spaces.
The result was not a single flagship intervention, but the progressive development of the fitness experience across a growing luxury hospitality portfolio.
THE VALUE OF LONG-TERM INVOLVEMENT
Strategy that evolves with the destination
The Sani/Ikos engagement demonstrates the value of maintaining specialist expertise alongside an internal development and operations team over time.
Rather than approaching each gym or fitness amenity as an isolated design project, the multi-year strategic partnership allowed individual investment decisions to contribute towards a broader direction for the portfolio.
Existing facilities could be reviewed against emerging expectations. New concepts could be tested and implemented. Lessons from operating resorts could inform future developments. And specialist fitness expertise could be brought into conversations with architects and master planners at the earliest stages of new projects.
For owners and operators of growing hospitality portfolios, this creates a bridge between wellness strategy, guest experience, development planning and physical implementation.
Scope
CLIENT: Sani/Ikos Group
SECTOR: Luxury Hospitality / Resorts
GEOGRAPHY: Mediterranean portfolio
ENGAGEMENT: 2021–2023 · Strategic partnership
ROLE: Group-level fitness advisory
SCOPE: Portfolio strategy · Existing asset review · New resort development · Fitness programming · Guest experience · Outdoor fitness · Early-stage development briefing
OUTCOMES: Portfolio-wide gym equipment upgrades · 6+ outdoor fitness areas · New resort gyms · New activity concepts · Early-stage briefing for future facilities