If your hotel gym ritual involves a pre-dawn lift ride to a basement full of black rubber equipment, change may be coming to your room instead. UK design firm Paragon Studio, which built its reputation fitting out superyachts and prime residential gyms, is launching a product called In-Suite at the HIX hospitality show in London, aimed at getting wellness kit out of the gym and into the guestroom.
The idea is refreshingly simple: instead of installing bulky equipment, hotels get fitted drawer inserts or wooden trays holding curated kits for movement, recovery and strength — think cork yoga kit, dumbbells, and items matched to the room's existing joinery. Because everything slots into a drawer, the system can be retrofitted into rooms that are already trading, with no layout changes. Housekeeping can check at a glance whether a piece is missing, since each item has its own cut-out. Kettlebells do apparently walk off sometimes, but the company handles replacement through a servicing package.
The digital side is where it gets personalised. Each kit carries a laser-etched plaque with a QR code linking to a web app with workout videos for strength, Pilates and recovery. Hotels can go from light-touch branding — their own colours, logos and languages — all the way to a bespoke video library filmed in the property's own rooms. Guests can also order extra equipment to their room via concierge. At launch, Paragon is showing In-Suite built into a bed frame with mattress maker Naturalmat, to demonstrate how the concept can be designed in from a project's start.
The company's research points to a guest segment hotels have largely overlooked: people who travel with a fitness routine, don't want to exercise in front of strangers, and would rather do mindful movement — yoga, Pilates, light mobility — in private. Paragon argues that hotels treat movement as one undifferentiated thing (the gym), when it actually splits into three: the gym, activities, and in-room wellbeing. Its earlier work shows the craft angle: at The Manchester Hotel in Lexington, dumbbell end plates were laser-engraved with the hotel logo, while Soho House properties worldwide now carry the firm's In-Room Wellness offering.
There's a sustainability story too. The core range is handmade in a UK workshop from steel and Iroko timber (chosen over teak for sourcing reasons), with an independent lifecycle assessment by Carbon Managers. The pitch to operators is longevity — repairable kit rather than rubber catalogue gear replaced every few years.
Why does this matter to travellers? Because in-room fitness is quietly becoming a differentiator between room categories, and something hotels can charge a premium for. If you're someone who books hotels partly to keep a routine alive, expect more properties to offer strength and recovery kits on request — and increasingly, to advertise them as a reason to book. The commercial logic means it won't stay niche: for a hotel, it's a visible, chargeable room feature that separates one category from another. Watch for it appearing first in design-led and luxury groups where interiors already matter, starting with the Soho House rollout that's already live.
