new
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Aspria’s latest new opening in Hamburg, Germany, wows both with its facilities and its service standards – as well as the story behind its creation. Kate Cracknell pays a visit
site, which opened in March of this year – one thing is very clear: you’re arriving at a club, not a gym. Turning off the road and walking
W
through well-kept gardens, you pass tennis courts and large windows with views into enticing gym spaces before entering a spacious reception area. There you’re greeted by a courteous member of staff more akin to a hotel receptionist than a gym front desk. Off to the left, the gym and spa – the latter artistically laid out within landscaped gardens, the former spread over two spacious, light-fi lled fl oors. Behind reception, a café area overlooking
hen you arrive at the new Aspria Uhlenhorst club in Hamburg, Germany – the operator’s eighth
the club’s indoor pool; a separate outdoor pool lies beyond, in the gardens.
NOT JUST A CLUB…. So far, so top-end health club. But at Aspria Uhlenhorst, there’s another side to the offering that sets it apart, and that lies on the fi rst fl oor. An atmospherically lit corridor leads away from the elevator towards 48 Mulberry-furnished hotel rooms, their bathrooms stocked with products from Kerstin Florian, the on-site spa’s chosen product house. Rooms are available to both members and non-members, starting at 120 a night including access to the gym and spa; members enjoy a 10 per cent discount. Some of these rooms open out onto the huge rooftop terrace, which adjoins the other particularly unexpected element
38 Read Health Club Management online at
healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital
of the club’s offering: a large restaurant, bar and lounge area with a menu, wine list and service standards that quite frankly sit in an entirely different category from any health club F&B offerings I’ve ever seen. Far from mere post-workout snacks – the café downstairs caters for that, as does the poolside snack hut in the gardens – this is somewhere you’d actively choose to go for dinner, or for a sunny Sunday lunch, even if you weren’t planning on using the club’s other facilities. Members can bring guests into the
restaurant, which also serves an extensive buffet breakfast for hotel guests, as well as for members keen enough to get in for an early morning workout. Staff fuel the impression of being in a top-end hotel – in fact, in many cases better, as they’re courteous without being
october 2012 © cybertrek 2012
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