Sleep as a KPI: what hotels get wrong about guest recovery

Ninety seven percent of these travelers said that they expect recovery, reduced stress as a part of this. Welcome back to Mental Wellness in Hospitality, part of the sustainable stay on the Future of Hospitality platform. Our first roundtable started as a pilot, but the conversation didn't end when the recording stopped. It continued on LinkedIn through comments, messages, new connections, and conversations across the industry. And that opened the door to what we're doing now, turning this into a series and taking some of those subjects much deeper. Today, we're starting with one that came directly out of that first conversation, sleep as a KPI. I'm joined again by three fantastic voices from our first roundtable. First, Jeremy McCarthy. He's the founder and CEO of Leisure Alchemy, a consultancy that works at the intersection of leisure, wellness and hospitality. He has spent his career working in wellness with the top brands in luxury hospitality, including Four Seasons, Starwood Hotels and Mandarin Oriental. He's also the author of The Psychology of Spas and Well-being, and he currently writes an industry newsletter that you can subscribe to at leisurealchemy.com. Javier Suarez is an international luxury wellness spa and hospitality strategist with over twenty five years of experience. His work sits at the intersection of well-being, human experience, and intentional design, specializing in bioarchitecture, longevity, protocols, and integrating high performance wellness environments into hospitality real estate. Javier, welcome back. Thank you. Keith Dickey is chairman and CEO of Youmind, a neuroacoustic technology company developing low demand infrastructure for mental well-being, recovery, and psychological resilience. His work sits at the intersection of technology, neuroscience, and hospitality, exploring how hotels and other real world environments can support recovery through personalized interventions that complement the guest experience, rather than asking guests to change their behavior. And I'm also very happy to welcome Youmind as a founding partner of this series. Keith, thank you for helping us make this series possible, and welcome back. Real pleasure. Thank you. Alright. Alright, guys. There we go. Hotels, they measure a lot, as you all know. ADR, guest satisfaction, reviews. But there's one rather fundamental thing that we rarely seem to measure. Did the guest actually sleep well? So let me put this on the table. Should sleep be a KPI for hospitality? If no one talks, I'm gonna point I'm looking I'm looking at Javier, but I thought so. Yeah. You're shy. I I can I can start if if you want? I mean, I think I think there are a couple of things that are competing with each other to think about answering that question. One is, people aren't necessarily coming to the hotel to sleep, and and that's why I was looking at Javier because I know I know he has some opinion opinions about that. But, you know, it's not really the on the list of reasons why guests stay at a hotel. They're not they're not necessarily prioritizing sleep when they think about the stay. I think the other thing that is challenging for the hospitality industry is that sleep is is difficult. Like, sleep is many people's wellness Achilles heel, and it's something that people, myself included, struggle with for years trying to find the right rituals, the right patterns, the right way, to to sleep better. And so I think it's a lot to, a lot of pressure to put on the hospitality industry to say, okay. You need to take these people that are coming into your hotel and arriving completely sleep deprived, and they haven't figured out in their own life how to manage their sleep, and you need to now solve those problems for them over a two to three night stay. So I think I think that's a challenge. But on the flip side, what I would say is that the guest who's staying in the hotel is spending a lot of their time while they're with you sleeping. And, or, you know, if all goes well, they're spending a lot of their time sleeping. So, it is a big part of any hotel stay, and it's probably, you know, a larger part than some of the other things that we tend to focus on, like food and beverage rooms, experience, things like that. They are spending a a significant amount of time in bed, And so we should think about that because it's a big chunk of the stay. I like that. I'll, I'll jump in here with a a little stat on this. I think I might have sent this to Aaron earlier, but, Flywire did a study. I think it was about twelve twelve hundred people or something like that, and they were all luxury travelers. Ninety seven percent of these travelers said that they expect recovery, reduced stress as a part of this. And so while it may be true that sleep isn't what they're seeing, I would I would postulate, not necessarily argue, but I would put out there that if you don't have sleep as a part of that, the recovery, the reduction in stress are not going to be accomplished. And I think the underlying here of this is it's to use the term from what what we what I actually use within the company is is layer zero. The concept that sleep is needed in order for everything else to be built on top of. And that seems to be broadly understood, but poorly implemented or built able to be executed within the hotel. So I'll I'll throw that out there. Javier, what do you think about that? Well, I don't know if it has to be a KPI. I don't think anybody comes into a hotel thinking I'm gonna I'm gonna improve my circadian rhythm tonight, But it definitely has to be built into the experience. I mean, if we want our guests to be happy and we want our guests to be easy, they they ought to have a good night's sleep. And and and to me, it has to be built way before the guest checks in. You know? If if we expect the guest to to do some kind of work, to to download an app, to read a card, that's never gonna happen. I mean, I've I've been there, and that doesn't work. So if we implement, the the necessary measures for people to have a good night of sleep, that will happen. And then, as I said, the guest will be much easier the next day. They will have a better mood, and they will interact with the staff in a better way, and that makes everybody happier. Yeah. I I think, the guest you know, while while they might not vocalize sleep as being the top priority, I think to to both Keith and Javier's point, they do want to feel rested, and they do want to feel good during their hotel stay. And a part of what you look forward to when you stay at a hotel is, you know, you're you're you're hoping that you're gonna be eating food that maybe is nicer than what you normally eat. You're hoping that you're gonna be sleeping in a bed that is more comfortable than what you're used to sleeping in. You're hoping that the environment is gonna be immaculate and and designed to be incredibly comfortable. So you do have high expectations, I think, that you're gonna be in this environment that's really conducive to rest and relaxation. Is there a responsibility, on the hotel side for that? Well, I think the responsibility for the hotel is to look look after our guests. And the hotel industry widely has embraced wellness as a core pillar. So, I mean, you know, Javier with Six Senses and, you know, maybe us with Mandarin Oriental, we were some of the brands that were forerunners of that. But I think today, you you couldn't find a hotel brand that doesn't say that the wellness of their guests is paramount to to what they are trying to deliver. Now a lot of times when they think about that, it's more about, well, we have a spa, we have fitness services, we have all of these other things. But going back to that point, the guest is gonna spend a lot of their time in bed at night. So how well are the hotel brands really delivering on sleep wellness? You know, probably a a little bit inconsistent across the industry. Just to take a you know, I'll piggyback off of what Javier and you're saying, Jeremy here, but I wanna go back to, like just I'll give you an example. Like, I'm not a parent, but I but I but I know people that are and, like and that the concept of a child, right, being overtired. When the child gets overtired, it does not matter. Right? Nothing else matters. Right? Like, that you've they're cranky. It doesn't matter if you give them food. And so that doesn't leave us when we turn into adulthood. Right? And that comes out of that study out of UC Berkeley by Walker that and here's what happens from the from the brain's perspective. Right? When you do not get enough sleep, your prefrontal cortex disconnects. It stops sending signals to the amygdala. Right? And that's so your emotions, right, are not connected to your thinking because you've lost sleep. And so when that occurs, that billion dollar guest experience that we're trying to create in the hotel is fundamentally starting from a halt. Right? And it's so it's the same way when the child you don't doesn't matter if you give the child a toy. It doesn't matter if you give the child a great meal. It doesn't matter if you put a movie on for them. If they're tired, it's not going to solve that problem. That understanding is ironclad. It is factual and scientific. Yet, when it comes into the room, we say we don't want it to be a KPI. I think we don't want it to be a KPI because we can't measure it. It. I think it's very challenging for us to measure it. It's a if you look at it from a perspective of biomarkers and that sort of data that you're collecting and you're gonna track the people's sleep that way, then you're opening up that you got private health information and that opens up a can of worms for you. But it could be simpler as a starting point. Do we have surveys? Do you have does your person the next morning when they're going down and getting coffee, ask them how they slept? Right? This is to me, this seems like how I would be approaching it as a starting point. It never no. That I I mean, I I wrote it down before we started. I never had that question. I was thinking about that question. I was like, like, that should they they should ask you that. Not all the time, but that should be a question from the hotel. Yeah. But there there might be two reasons that we don't, kind of focus on that as a KPI. One, to to what Keith said, we don't have a good way of measuring it. But the second thing, which we talked about on the last call, is the first night effect and the research that shows that, you know, people in general don't sleep well their first night in a new location. So, you know, even if you're doing everything right, there's a good chance that if you're if you're trying to measure the sleep of your guest, they're gonna have a more difficult time sleeping in an unfamiliar environment. Now now that doesn't mean we shouldn't measure it because actually I think there's a lot of things that hotels can do to counteract the first night effect and to help people get over that hurdle and and help people have a better night's sleep. Is it overcome can you overcome the first night effect? Is that possible? Sure. I mean, but, yeah, absolutely it's possible. Right? They can You can mitigate it. I don't know if overcome is the right word, but you could mitigate. Mitigate it. Right. And there's there's both both from a, physical layout perspective, like light, sound, thermal regulation are huge in helping that. That goes to your big three drivers. But the familiarity of the environment as well as a piece of that. And familiarity isn't just the physical environment. Familiarity can be built off of the relationships that you have not only with the hotel, but the people in that hotel. So when you're returning so that concept of trying to create that familiarity as a way to help combat the first night effect in addition to what needs to happen from a lighting, thermal, and acoustic perspective. That's the totality of the package. Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was this concept? I think Javier, you're kinda talking about that one night protocol or night one protocol that you're working with is that that, yes, we acknowledge it's there and, yes, it's really hard to overcome. But like you said, we can do things to mitigate it. I was I used to be one of those guys that was a high flying consultant. Right? I got on the plane every week. I used to carry duct tape around with me. Not a line. Why? Because I duct tape the curtains closed because I could see the slightest sliver of light in there. And I've I'm not the only one that's done this. So the people know what they need and the hotel largely understands it, but it's kinda like I'll use the analogy of AI. Yeah. It's it gets close, but it really doesn't get it perfect. And in order to overcome the first night effect, your lighting, your acoustics, and your thermal have to be absolutely perfect to give you even a chance to try to overcome that biological reality that you're facing. Sorry. But but, Javier, before before you jump in, I just wanna make sure because not everyone will have seen the last conversation that we had. But the first night effect is basically, you know, well documented that when when people are, you know, finding themselves in an unfamiliar environment, they will not sleep as well the first night. And it basically links back to, you know, a lot of what Keith just described. It's about feelings of safety and familiar familiarity. So when you're in an unfamiliar environment or, you know, an area where maybe you just don't feel as safe, you your mind will tend to stay alert because you are evolutionarily programmed to be more alert to threat. So that's that's the first night effect. And, yeah, I know, Javier, you've been you've been thinking about this for a while as well. Yeah. I mean, to answer your question, Arjun, I I don't think hotels it's in the hotel's best interest to to make sleep as a KPI because what you guys just said, you know, we're talking about the air, you know, the quality of the air that you breathe, the soundproofing of the rooms, the circadian lighting of the rooms. Listen, I've been around the block, and I've seen very few hotels that get it right. And and and it has to do with with with with investment, and it has to do with thinking ahead and and doing all of this. And, you know, we all we all know what are the things that prevent you from having a good night of of sleep, but at the same time, you know, you don't wanna you don't wanna measure that. I mean, I'm I'm talking from experience when we had six senses sleep program. The majority of the guests, even though they were in a sleep program, they were not interested on following the rules. So if you if you wanna be in a sleep program, but you're gonna drink wine and you're gonna have a big steak and you're gonna stay up late and you're gonna have, you know, blue lights and so on and so forth, You know? No wonder the next day they came to us and they had a terrible night of sleep. So I don't think it's it's per se a a KPI. I like the word that, Jeremy used that mitigate, which which I think is essential. You know? If if at home, you know, when you are at your best, you get an 80 or a 90 out of a 100 of sleep. And and and in a hotel where you're in a in a strange environment, you you know, you went to bed at 1PM, and at 1AM, sorry, and you can get a 70 or an 80, that's that's great. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, Keith, you know I think I'm kinda I mean, because I I think both both Keith and Javier are coming from very different perspectives. But you're both actually exactly right because I think Javier brings up a very good point. You know, the guest is not you know, even if you try to give them the right ritual to do and, you know, and a lot of hotels try to do this. Right? We have bedtime stories and bath butlers and all kinds of things that we can do. But we know that most guests aren't gonna drink the herbal tea and turn off their devices an hour before bedtime and do all the things that we recommend them to do. But there are also lots of things, and this goes back to Keith's point. There are lots of things that the hotels either do or don't do that could help to create the right environment or mitigate some of those effects. And, you know, that that familiarity that Keith was talking about is exactly right. Like, what what are the things that that kind of amplify that feeling that you're in an unfamiliar environment? And and I'll give you a great example because this has happened to me so many times in a hotel where, you know, you're in your hotel, you're doing you know, maybe you're working, you're reading, you're watching TV, whatever. Then you decide it's time to go to bed. As soon as you decide it's time to go to bed, you start going around and you realize you have no idea how to turn the lights off in your head. Yes. And and it's not and it's not intuitive. And you're, you know, I mean, I have been in I have been in rooms where I literally have had to sleep with the lights on because I could not figure out how to turn them off. And and, you know, when you go through that so so so if that ends up being the last thing you do before you go to bed, you have just really ratcheted up that feeling of of you're in an unfamiliar space, and you're not in a place that feels like you have control over your environment and that you feel comfortable and you feel at home. So it's, you know, it's a horrible way to to start, you know, what should be a good night of sleep. Yeah. I think you're look. I would go back to it's gotta be passive. Right? Like, when you're so Javier, to your point, like, the guests aren't gonna do the right thing. A part of that is you're you're asking them to do stuff. Right? And now they're gonna do the wrong things on top of that. Right? Like, so they're gonna do things that are gonna be counter effect counter to actually getting your night sleep. But when we ask them to do things that are supporting sleep, I think that's where it starts to fall over. I think a lot of the things inside of the room, specifically inside of the room, very nice hotel in Switzerland. Five star. Went there. Two red lights, glaring red lights on two electronic devices. One on a TV and one on a, hand the hand cord, like, like, for your phone. I don't know why you need a a phone, but you had a phone. Right? So can't get the one on the TV to turn off because I can't reach behind the thing to turn to unplug the thing. So I've gotta find something to cover that one up. The other one, I can unplug because it's able to be unplugged. Well, I unplug it, then it's got a bat so it's a cordless receiver. And so when it goes the battery starts to go off at 01:00 in the morning, it's buzzing because the battery's gone low on it. That is the things that those things are the things. They're tiny, and they are the difference. They are absolutely the difference between being able to get that sleep and not get it's that same concept of yeah. There's those blackout curtains they are blackout curtains, but guess what? There's a bar right here in the center that doesn't let them come all the way closed. Where you know what? It would be a heck of a lot better if you designed where one curtain slid underneath the other curtain, and then they both went across each other by about a foot. That is a absolute design flaw that is not accounting for the reality of the importance of the first night effect. I would take it a step further, and I think it kinda leads into what you're what we're talking about a little bit later. But it's compounded in the hotel situation, that first night effect, because that human being has traveled. And when that individual travels, they hit all those mini little disruptions in their day that they carry as those little bitty micro threats, and then they start to build what we know as allostatic load. Right? We talked about that. But that low level grade of stress that you have combated with that first night effect, it creates a recipe for disaster for sleep on that first night. And anything that is done wrong after that is multiplied on top of it. Right? It's a multiplying effect. So, yeah, maybe you don't care when you go in there and you're the general manager and you see us one light on and anything else because you're used to that environment and you can sleep like a baby in there. But guess what? That guest that a row that arrived after being on a plane for ten hours and a two hour taxi ride and then is in an unfamiliar environment, that single light could wreck their night. I I think that the the most important thing a hotel can do to improve people's sleep is not to interfere with their sleep. And this is something that people do not really look into it because you just mentioned the general manager going to a room. I mean, let's be honest. How many general managers actually sleep in the hotel? They don't even they don't even know what happens in their own rooms. You know? Maybe they speak they sleep in one or two or three. But if it's a 100 room hotel, they haven't really checked all of them. This is part of what I'm doing now in the night one protocol thing. Because, you know, at the end of the day, if you go down the list of the things that interfere with your sleep, let alone all the ASHA one, all the things that all the supplements that you can take, you know, the magnesium, forget forget about all those things for a minute. You know? If if if the if there was proper isolation in the room so you couldn't hear your neighbors at night because they have different time frames and they go to bed they go to sleep at three in the morning, they're watching Netflix, where you want you want to go to sleep at at at eleven, and you're listening to the TV next door. And that's that's the fault of the hotel. You know? The the lighting that you were talking about, no one ever thought about covering those red lights, red dots, or you know, it's just simple interventions that they they can do. You know? Some of the doors some some hotels, they have the the doors of the room that slam when they close. So there's tiny interventions that people can do to not interfere with people's sleep. So, you know, I I I think there's a lot to be done to improve people's, sleep in a hotel. Alright. That brings me to the journey before someone arrives at the hotel. So before the guest arrives, they may already be exhausted. I mean, stressed out, jet lagged or overstimulated. I had that many times myself. So by the time a guest checks in, what role can the hotel actually play in helping helping them recover? Can that role already begin before they arrive perhaps? That's the key. That, in my opinion, is the big missing yes. You're never gonna get someone on a circadian rhythm in a two or three night stay. No. First thing you can do though is is before they arrive, there's absolutely things that you can do to help assist them. Right? This is one of the huge things that with what you might is is where you can three days beforehand, you can you can have your actual jet lag and circadian rhythm alignment protocol sent to you. The guest can actually then start to adjust prior to arrival. There is one and then post stay, they're getting the behavior to stick as the world gets more and more digital. We've got, like, legitimately the FDA has approved digital prescriptions now. That these are things that can actually be deployed remotely and can stay with a guest post stay. In my opinion, the pre and post component of a hotel stay is a large part of what would need to be accounted for if you were going to move towards truly trying to capture sleep as some version of a KPI. Yeah. One one of the things I always think about is, you know, if I visit a hotel that I'm working with, I'll ask them what what's the average length of stay? And they'll say, you know, two nights, or maybe they'll say two point three nights or something like that. And I'll say, well, what's the average length of stay in hours? And usually, they never know. But I'll I'll ask them. I want you to figure out what time does your guest usually arrive, what time do they usually depart, how many hours are they actually here with you. And usually, what what I think is missing in a lot of hotels is kind of like a sense of urgency that the guest is only with you for a very short amount of time, and how quickly can you get them into that experience from the moment they arrive. And so what I always think about is, like, the first experience at most hotels is figuring out what the experience is. So you you arrive to the hotel, and most people will not have made a single plan yet. They don't know what they're doing that night. They don't know whether they're gonna have dinner. They don't know if the hotel has a spa. They haven't gone online yet and looked at the spa. Too many options. Yeah. So so their first, you know, several hours sometimes, especially if it's a resort property, their first several hours sometimes is just kind of trying to figure out the lay of the land. Mhmm. And some of that pre work that you can do with a guest is and it goes back to the building those feelings of familiarity, is starting to help them ramp up to what kind of an experience they can expect when they when they arrive and already have the experience ready and waiting for them to slide right into when they get there. So if you know the guest is traveling, you know the guest is going through a certain ordeal to get to your location, how quickly are you getting them into some kind of a recovery experience from the moment they arrive? And and if that planning doesn't begin before they arrive, then it means that the guest is having to figure it out for themselves after they're already there and meeting up, you know, a very valuable time that they don't have very much of with you. Absolutely right. I mean, the familiarity before you arrive, that's something that can be supported by the hotel. Reaching out three days beforehand, these are the things that we have to offer. Would you like something like this? Even if it does nothing, it creates a bond. It creates a bond that creates comfort, and comfort creates familiarity. And again, combating it's not it's not impossible. It seems like and and and, Jeremy, I'm not knocking you, but even you, you're saying when the guest arrives. In my mind, the guest arrived the moment they booked. The moment the guest booked is the moment you have the opportunity to start building that familiarity to help combat those known biological challenges that they're going to face. So even even on a psychological level, if you think about trying to create that feeling of safety and familiarity, Imagine the difference in arriving to a hotel where you've already been talking to a member of the team. You know somebody there. The person you've been talking to is greeting you when you arrive, and you're meeting them, you know, face to face. But you already feel, you know, known and you feel like you have a connection with somebody there. It's a very big difference psychologically from arriving to a hotel that's filled with strangers that you you don't know who anybody is or who to go to if you have a question. Yeah. I also think that it's important I go back to the same concept, which is not to interfere with people's sleep because we all we've all been there, and we've all checked into a hotel. They don't know anything about us. They don't even ask us why we're here. And maybe I'm I really wanna sleep. I really need some rest. Mhmm. But guess what? They put me right next to the elevator. They put me next to the housekeeping pantry. And and and if if they were to ask me at the check-in, why are you here? Or before, like you were saying, Keith, you know, find out why are they coming to us. I need to rest. I've had a couple of months that have been very intense, and I need I'm really looking forward to three days of profound sleep because they told me your hotel has incredible mattresses. You even have a sleep program, but nobody's telling me about the sleep program. But guess what? The reason why I'm there is to really recuperate and let sleep. That's why I'm saying hotels do a great job of interfering with people's sleep, whether it's Do not interfere. That's the message. There's a little it's a little bit there's I'll give you an example. So so, like, go back to thermal. Right? Like, so you you you're usually, you need a lower temperature at night to get a good night's sleep broadly speaking. That's what occurs. That can compete with the audio that occurs. Right? Like, so you need normal silence. Right? You don't need the sounds. Well, if your if your HVAC is kicking on at 01:00 in the morning to help keep the thermal regulation there, it doesn't you're you're you're competing. Right? And this is where there's a lack of understanding of the biological priority of what's gonna allow for you to sleep and what's gonna cause the interference of sleep. So it's not as simple as just not interfering because we even if we didn't interfere, certain of the actual, infrastructure and architectural things we're trying to create potentially could interfere with each other while they're trying to maintain their individual siloed approach to making sure we don't interfere. Does that make sense? Definitely. I I think what Javier is saying is kind of like the Hippocratic oath in medicine. You know, like, first, do no harm. But but, you know, so so, you know, the first step for any hotel is really to look at what are the things that we're doing that just gets in the way right right from the get go. You know, where where is the lighting wrong? Where is the noise control wrong? And and I do think a lot of hotels, you know, try to address those issues because the guests tell them you know, the guests will complain about it, and and they will get feedback, and so they'll try to address those issues. But I think where I would push back a little bit is I I do think I just I still think there's an opportunity for hotels to go beyond that. And I just think about any any kind of wellness programs that we offer in hospitality. I always think there's there's two kinds of wellness guests. First, you have your guest that already has an established routine. For that guest, your goal is to make sure that they are able to do the routine that they already know works for them Mhmm. And that you are providing whatever they need. So period. You know, if you have a guest and every night, they take a bath and they have herbal tea and they, you know, do their meditation, do they have everything they need and the right space and the, you know, every everything they need to complete the ritual that they already do and that they already know? The other kind of wellness guest are ones that don't necessarily have that ritual established yet. And I think hospitality does do an incredible job of actually introducing people to a new behavior or a new modality or something that they they hadn't necessarily integrated into their lifestyle, but the first time they try it is when they're at a hotel. And so I'm not, I I don't know if this is the right word, Javier, but I'm I'm not as pessimistic as you are that that we can't influence people's behavior because because I think a lot of people do, you know, maybe try something for the first time while they're in an unfamiliar environment. Their routine is disrupted. They experience something new. Maybe it's a bedtime ritual. Maybe it's having, you know, tea and a bath before they go to bed. And and then they like it, and they take that home with them, and and they go and integrate it into their lifestyle. I'll I'll jump back here. I think you're I Javier, I I the Hippocratic Oath, that that analogy is spot on, guys. Like, I blew me away, honestly. But I do think that's probably priority one is don't get in the way. Don't get in the way as for but but I'll take it a step further like okay. So, imagine you're at your dinner and you open up the menu. We know food. We know we know caffeine keeps you awake. Right? We know alcohol disrupts your sleep. Imagine if you opened up your menu after dinner and you saw a nice little moon besides beside the actual foods, the meals that we're going to assist you or encourage you. Look, people are going I'll go further. People are going way away from alcohol. Right? The younger generation moving massively away from that. Don't take and say you got nonalcoholic wine. Say you got wine that's going to not inhibit your sleep. Right? That's the way and it's the way that you position it than actually so, yes. Javier, you're absolutely right. Do no harm. Don't get in the damn way of letting me sleep. Right? But this one yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead, An. Is this one of the the you talked about interventions that don't require require guests to change their behavior. This is one of them. You got it. These are the ones where you are not you can't ask just like Javier said. The guest gotta be a guest. They're not going to really change or do much different. If they're going to do it, it's an it's a part of an experience. Sleep isn't a part of the experience. Sleep is an expected baseline. So everything you're going to do to encourage that has to be passive. It has to be something the guest doesn't have to actively think about in order to encourage it. Right. Alright. I wanna go to the next one. What actually moves the needle? So let's make this practical. I'll give each of you a budget, for per room to improve sleep. Where would you spend it on? I go with I go with the assets inside of the room and the staff. Those are the two things I train my staff. To my staff. The staff who engages with my guest in the sleep period. Understanding the importance of when you're walking up to serve that midnight room service to the other person, make sure you're extra quiet. Don't bang the tray down when you drop it off. Right? So making sure my staff understands the importance of the totality of what we're trying to we're trying to create and allow for would be where I'd spend some of my money in training them. And then all the rest of my money would live inside of the actual room where the person is trying to sleep. And that would be across thermal. That would be across acoustics. That would be air and also lighting. Anyone? Well, I I have a I have a proposal that would not only not cost money, it would save money to the hotel. Okay. And that would be to remove the TV from the guest room. Oh, I love it. I would never I love that. I think if you did that, people would sleep much better. The room would just be a nicer environment. You'd be able to decorate it, you know, more as a space for serenity and and relaxation. And I think a lot of people wouldn't miss it today because nowadays, if you wanna watch something anyway, you're probably gonna watch it on your own device. Some people might cast it to the TV. But if if I was gonna spend money, then maybe it would be to hide the TV. Mhmm. So so if we can't remove the TV because, you know, maybe customers will would not be, entirely accepting of that, then the next best thing would be to hide the TV and and, you know, kinda put it behind the cabinet, put it out of sight, out of mind, and just, you know, just discourage one less lit up screen that people are looking at right before they go to bed, I think, would go a long way. Yeah. I mean, a 100%. I agree with both of you guys. I mean, I think suggestions were fantastic. And, you know, a 100%, I agree with both of you guys. I mean, I think suggestions were fantastic. And, you know, a 100 fantastic and, you know, a $100 is not a lot of money, but, I would spend it on just covering the red dots of the phones. Yeah. And and some blackout curtains. I mean, if honestly, if if, you know, we've all been because sometimes I feel like we're talking about luxury hotels, five star hotels, which they all get it and and and they do an amazing job, especially the big chains. But let's let's consider four star hotels. Let's consider other type of hotels that don't really have a wellness team behind them to understand all of this. And I've been to hotels where, you know, it's a shit show. Sorry. It's it's a disco at night and it and it's terrible. So I would spend some money into training the stuff. It's essential. You know, I'm having a terrible night of I can't fall asleep. What can I do? I get on the phone. You know? Let me bring you some chamomile tea, some something simple. So, you know, obviously, there's the the pillow menus and and and and all that, it's great because you you know, that's one of the most important components when you go to sleep. You have to have your own pillow. So if you cannot travel with your own pillow, then make sure your staff knows the differences between all the pillows because, you know, you were saying that before. You know, I I I love it when when I go to a hotel and they have a pillow menu because I get to try them all. And then I buy the one that I really like, you know, where there's the this phone pillow or this butterfly pillow. You know, when I go home, I I really get to to to, you know, to experience before and then buy that. But, you know, just cover the phones, cover the, you know, and and and the TV in terms of the TV, yes. You know, screens that nowadays are, you know, nobody watches the TV anymore, but that's a problem because everybody's holding their iPads closer to their eyes and and their phones and watching Netflix even closer. And and the wife is watching something on Netflix, and the husband is watching something else on Netflix. So they don't even share anything together anymore. Wouldn't I mean, taking the pillow eye like, the pillow menu idea, but, you know, you off the bat you know, imagine if you had, like, someone that, like, okay. It's it's 11:00 and I can't sleep and I see you in my room. Can't sleep? Call us. We got stuff. Right? And then you call down to the front desk of, hey. We got neuroacoustics for you. We got some lighting stuff for you. We got chamomile tea for you. We got we got scents that you can put on your pillows that are the like, the that could be you you the create treating the moment when that person realizes they're having the first night effect or they can't sleep as an opportunity to actually because if I then made a phone call to you and then you gave me something that helped me sleep, you've got a customer for life. You've got someone that is wed to you at that moment because you did something I couldn't thought I ever do. I've slept in a haunted hotel. I I have a terrible night sleep every time. Nothing I can do about it. This hotel I stayed at when I didn't have something, they gave me some options. Yeah. I I love that suggestion. I I don't know if you guys have heard about the concept of two sleeps a night. I do. So I'm a two sleeper. Yeah. I mean, me too. So, you know, there there's some there's some, you know, kinda historical evidence to suggest that maybe two sleeps rather than one. You know, we we think because in the industrial age, the idea was we want everybody to sleep for eight hours, then they can come and work, you know, the rest of the day. But but that, actually, it might be a normal human pattern to sleep for a little bit, wake up for a little bit, and then go back to sleep for a little bit. And and one of the things that gets in the way is because we have been programmed with all of these this messaging around that we should be just getting a straight solid block of eight hours of sleep a night. That then when you wake up in the middle of the night, you're stressed about the fact that you're waking waking up, and then that stress and anxiety about sleep makes it harder for you to go back to sleep. Whereas what Keith just described, I think, is is actually a great solution. And and it's interesting because we we talked about addressing the light and the noise and all all of those things, but, you know, everybody who works in hospitality has at least had conversations about lights in the room and and soundproofing and all of that. But both of you said you would invest in staff training, and I think that's probably the underestimated area where people could really make a much bigger impact. And what you just described, Keith, is is, like, a way that helps people to feel like if you wake up in the middle of the night It's okay. It's okay. It's normal. And you know what? We actually have something for you to do. Like, come down to the lobby. Oh, fantastic. Joe is gonna be on graveyard shift, and he'll have a cup of tea with you, and then you can go back to bed. You know, like, just give people something to do and and the feeling that it's okay for them to have that break in their sleep. Jeremy, that is so spot on. I like that. You got two points there. Right? Like one, like, there is a subset of humanity that does exactly this where they sleep. They usually before we had lights. Right? Like, before we had electricity. Right? So a lot of people would go to bed when the sun went down, You would sleep until, like, one to 02:00 in the morning, and then you usually were up from, like, 01:00 in the morning until about four, and then you usually fall back and sleep around four. I spent until I was 30 years old in my life trying to get a full eight hours of sleep. I did not realize that I buy that this is me. And so, first of all, the opportunity to educate people about what they don't know is just a massive thing there. You could teach some and you would get a customer for life. The second point that that brings up, Jeremy, is that it's personalized. Sleep is also personalized. Each person slightly does it differently, and they have slightly different things that bother them. Right? And so understanding yourself and helping the person, help if you as a a hotel could help the person understand what they needed, what they didn't need for sleep, that's how you get them to go back afterwards and actually get their circadian rhythm alignment. You can't do it in the two days you're there. But if you could educate me about myself and my sleep pattern, oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Yeah. I think it you know, I I was just thinking right now that sleep is the very one thing that every guest is going to do in your hotel. Not everyone is gonna go to your restaurant. You hope so, but not everyone is going to the restaurant. Not everyone is going to the spa, but everyone is going to sleep. So if you take it seriously, I mean, I remember when we were launching the sleep program in six senses, you know, six, seven years ago, that our CEO made a executive decision, and he said this program is not going to be with the spa people. And we were looking at him saying, what are you talking about? We are the ones that know about this. And he says, well, that's exactly what I don't want you to do because I want the front office people Mhmm. And I want the FNB people, and I want everyone to talk about sleep and to know about sleep. And at the beginning, we thought he's crazy. He's gone cuckoo. But then we realized that that was the right decision because that's exactly what you want. You want to to know that everyone in that hotel knows something about sleep. Whether it's the quality of the mattress, whether it's the bed sheets, whether it's the temperature that you must sleep at, whether you like it or not. But if you're looking at, you know, Joe in reception and he says, listen. You know, you should be sleeping between eighteen and twenty one degrees Celsius. That's the optimal temperature for you to sleep at. You go, wow. You know, this is great. And then the next day, like you were saying, you know, we made a point of asking everyone, how did you sleep? And we started engaging that conversation. We started and the people in the restaurant knew about how how, you know, how you slept and what to do about You know? Because if you didn't have a good night of sleep, then you should favor these foods and avoid all of this. And by the way, we did have little icons in the menu that said these favors the sleep, you know, this is part of the sleep problem or not. And that makes a big difference for everyone. Alright. Javier, that brings me to, the people at the other side of the door. We we've been talking about the person sleeping in the room, the one that has checked in. But let's turn the camera around. What about the people on the other side of the door? What about the people who bring you bring you that extra pillow? What about that person at, in the restaurant, works in the restaurant or at the front desk? Can hospitality deliver a restorative guest experience with an exhausted workforce? Or Well, you know, Keith mentioned, you know, the prefrontal cortex before, and he mentioned, you know, how, you know, that makes a, you know, not having a good night of sleep makes you an a a a difficult guest. Let's put it that way because you're grumpy and you, you know, you're reaching out for the sugary foods and, you know so if your staff knows about that, then they are able to to respond in a much better and understanding way. But like you said, if your staff hasn't slept well, then then that makes a ticking ball. Because if your staff taking care of that guest is hasn't slept well, then we have a problem because they are they are they have a much shorter time of reaction, and and and it's definitely something that we need to pay attention to. Staff, health and staff, asleep is is essential to the experience of the guest. Therefore, like I was saying to you, investing in in training them and investing them in having the proper shifts and understanding to to, you know, that that you should avoid caffeine certain you know, past a certain period of time, which believe it or not, many people don't understand, you know, and and that's Coca Cola and and as well because some people don't understand that. You know, Coca Cola has a lot of sugar and caffeine and that interferes with your sleep. But then because you are, you know, working two shifts straight, then you must keep awake. So that's that's crucial. Investing in the staff is crucial to have a good sleep experience for our guests as well. When when so when, so I'm a sailor. I think you guys know. Right? So I do ocean passages at times and right? And so I cross oceans and I'm on my own with me and my wife, and so we do we go sleep deprive. Yeah. Keith Keith is on a boat right now. Oh, sorry. Yeah. So I know. He doesn't realize. Keith is sitting on a boat. He's sitting on a boat, but, but, no. I've crossed crossed a couple ocean, crossed the Pacific Ocean, crossed the Atlantic Ocean. I've done it by myself, and I'll go also done double handed. Right? Like, in you know, you just do not get as much sleep over a period of time. It's just it's what happens. You have to be there. I am extremely aware of my diminished cognitive and emotional capacity as I become more and more sleep deprived because in my life depends on it. A decision and something that I could do on day two of a passage is something that I am incapable and I know I can't do or I shouldn't do on day 14 of a passage. It's it could be even as simple as that for the staff. Yes. It would all be great if the staff understood and got a perfect night sleep. We know that's where you need to go, but even educating. But it could be as simple as just being like, alright, guys. Who slept well last night? Who didn't sleep well last night? If you didn't sleep well last night, hey. Just be aware you might be a little bit more on edge today. Maybe you don't wanna if you have someone that's dealing with a if you got a challenging guest, maybe try to pass them off as someone who had a better night sleep that has a little bit more bandwidth. Right? These these are practical, accomplishable things, but the understanding that sleep controls your ability to problem solve, your ability to relate, your ability to have emotions, those things if I got a crappy night's sleep and I gotta go in and I gotta be the front desk staff or I gotta go be the person that's serving serving food, am I aware that that because I didn't sleep well, I'm likely going to be having a little bit more of a potentially combative situation? No, I'm not. Who's fault is that? It's not my fault. It's actually my management's fault. It's my HR's fault because they haven't taught me that I am really important to the guest because we can coregulate off of each other. And so when you didn't have that good night sleep, here's things that we can have you do instead of or potentially in a complex a company meant to. I don't think I've ever seen a single hotel staff training around any of that concept. Good idea. I really it it should be. Yeah. It is not hard. I mean, you I mean, and most people will be willing to share. Hey, you know, it's not you could find out from your staff on or with some level of certainty. Hey, how you guys sleeping? Right? Like or on or and and find a way to do that check-in. And if you could get them to comfortably share that with you because they could understand the importance of it. There's operational changes you could do that day that would help mitigate that fact. We, we agree that it is not measurable sleep. Right? So it cannot be a KPI. I don't quite fall into that category. I because where I live in the health care world, like, it is a measurable KPI. I believe that it I think you could have a starting point of just asking the desk guest and and then use that as your starting point of a metric. Maybe it's not a KPI but some version. But I think it fundamentally is inhibited right now of being a full fledged biomarker KPI within hospitality due to the it's rife with complexities on the personal data, personal health data, and how you would handle that. Because not only do your not only does everyone in the hotel needs to be aware of it. Right? And then that all exposes you to substantial risk associated with that. So I don't see a clear line of sight to how you could make it a full fledged biomarker KPI, But I do think you could start at a middle road and say, yeah. You could do a you could do a every every guest gotta ask, hey. How was your sleep? Right? And then that could be a proxy for something. Yeah. I wouldn't I wouldn't go so far as to say it's not measurable. It's not easy to measure. And it's, I mean, I guess my my thing my view would be that great hospitality brands invest in things that are not easy to measure. So, you know, the great hospitality brands are the ones who make a bet in on something that they believe is important to their guests even though it's not easy to measure. And that's what you know, that's wellness as a whole, as a category is kind of like that. It's hard to measure the ROI of wellness, but a lot of brands have come to the belief that this is important to our guests whether we can measure it well or not. So let's say tomorrow morning, all the hotels in the world, they decide together to take, sleep and recovery very seriously. What is the one thing that you will tell them to start doing? Understand what drives it. Understand what drives a good sleep. That's my that's for me. Very few people understand what your eyes good sleep, especially with the first night effect and and the accompanying allostatic load. I would say, you know, going back to what you we said, train your team. Knowledge is power. Yes. If if imagine checking into a hotel where everyone knows a lot about sleep. You you know, all of a sudden your focus will shift. Maybe you checked into that hotel for a different reason, but if everyone is talking about a sleep, everything is hinted, you know, to for you to have a good night of sleep, and there's a sleep program. And and, you know, the food being served in the restaurant is it favors a good night of sleep. You mentioned, nonalcoholic drinks. You know, if everything is around that, then then you might as well just try it, you know. And and and and maybe you didn't have a good night of sleep, but the mattress was incredible. The pillows was amazing. I've learned a whole bunch of things, which, you know, to me, that's one of the things I love. Walk away with a with an incredible lesson. That's such a good point because sometimes it doesn't even matter if we succeeded. Right? If I knew that you were consciously trying to support me sleeping and then I didn't sleep, I am way less likely to be frustrated at you and upset about my poor sleep than as if I see that red light there. And I might have not been able to sleep that night regardless whether that red light was there. But by god, I am a 100% certain that the reason I didn't sleep now is because that red light was there. Right? And so there's a subtle difference that you probably will get this grace of I'm trying to support. They're trying to help me. So even if you can't overcome the biology, you're actually going to be able to have a guest that's more receptive to a poor night sleep because they understand that you tried. I think I think there's also there's something very elegant about the training, the way that Javier describes it of, you know, training these team members from across different departments in sleep. Because not only are you training them in something where they can really make an impact on the guest experience, but you're also giving them something that they hopefully take home personally and, you know, improve their own their own wellness, their own, performance. Is it potentially impacted by having those tools to sleep better themselves? So I I think that is a great example. Yeah. I mean, that's exactly my point, Jeremy. I mean, if you have a staff hotel with 400 people that are being trained on sleep, you know, that's 400 families that you're impacting, not just the the employees themselves. But they go back home and they they start looking at the mattress and saying, when was the last time I turned it around? When was the last time I flipped it? When was the last time we bought a a mattress? Oh, it's ten years old. No wonder we we have we have back pains. You know? And the pillows and just from the basics, you know, I love that impact that hospitality can always can have in their in in in people's lives because, you know, we often talk about the impact. And Jeremy and I, you know, I know about this. The air the impact that wellness has in the hospital in the hotel. Right? If you ask me, it's all about wellness and and and and every guest comes back. And, obviously, I was in six senses, but everyone came back because of the wellness. Right? But if you ask other departments, they they don't think so. But at the end of the day at the end of the day, to me, it's crucial because we have a huge impact in people's lives. Whether it's the guest that remembers the first time they embark in a sleep program was a six senses at the time, you know, six, seven years ago, or Mandarin or Four Seasons. You name it. They came up with all these beautiful programs, and and they will always remember that. Now the staff takes it home with them, and it impacts their wives, spouses, children, and their loved ones because they talk to their mothers. So the impact that you have into launching a sleep program in a hotel is incredible. Yeah. And the science supports it completely. Everything is performed and done better with a well rested human, And your staff is no exception to this. You will positively impact the staff's life outside of that hotel if you empower them with the knowledge to sleep better. I am a 100% certain of that. Alright. Well, gentlemen, I think that, this will this is bringing us full circle. We, we started by asking whether sleep should actually be a KPI for, hospitality, and perhaps the bigger question should be how much responsibility hospitality can take for creating the conditions in which people can recover. Javier, Jeremy, and Keith, thank you so much. Keith, Youmind, thank you again for supporting this series Love it. As a founding partner. And to everyone watching and listening, this conversation continues. We'll see you in the next mental wellness in hospitality roundtable.