How it came to be owned by Der Touristik is a long story – too long to describe now – but I think it’s fair to say that it wasn’t part of a finely tuned strategy; more just a happy accident.
We love our hotel in the same way that some parents love an unplanned only child. For a while we stumbled around not really knowing what to do with it, but over time Playitas has developed into a real success story, becoming one of Europe’s best sports resorts.
It now has a full-size Olympic swimming pool, tennis courts, a state of the art road bike and mountain bike facility, the biggest gym I’ve ever seen and an almost endless list of activities on offer, all designed to tone and hone the already rippling bodies of Europe’s elite fitness community.
So it was that last week I found myself having breakfast in a restaurant full of Lycra-clad triathletes.
While they queued at the Protein Bar, I was scouring the buffet in vain for a pork sausage and slice of black pudding.
The set-up needs to be seen to be believed. By mid-morning the huge basketball arena in the middle of the hotel grounds is teeming with more than 150 guests being led in an aerobics workout by an instructor perched on a 6ft-high podium, belting out instructions through a Madonnaesque mic; the throb of a drum and bass exercise remix provoking ever more enthusiasm from the already pumped-up participants – it’s almost religious in feel.
Throughout the day, cyclists arrive and depart the hotel and the lanes of the Olympic pool fill with swimmers carefully recording their lap times using the huge timers on each side of the pool.
Fitness is a huge business – think parkrun, The Wolf Run, 10Ks, Ironman competitions and triathlons – and yet the travel industry has been slow to respond.
There’s a massive untapped opportunity for hotels to cater for the fitness conscious. This is not niche activity – millions of people are taking part in these pursuits every week. Last Sunday more than 40,000 people ran the London Marathon (including our very own TTG team!) so why not cater for them on holiday?
Perhaps the most surprising thing for me was how contagious the whole thing was. By the end of day two of the conference I was attending, I was happily signing up for activities that I wouldn’t dream of doing at home, culminating in a 3.5km assault course over the undulating black volcanic ash of the local countryside.
More and more people are recognising that communal exercise is a great way to manage the stress and strain of everyday life. It seems a natural progression to take the same philosophy on holiday.
Maybe Playitas won’t be the only child after all.
Derek Jones is chief executive of Der Touristik UK
