According to the 2025 Nigeria Hotel Report by Aninver, there were approximately 3,139 hotel establishments in Nigeria as of 2023. This figure encompasses a range of hotels, from motels to guesthouses and luxury hotels.
Hotels are patronised based on their daily rates (whether luxury, upscale, midscale, or economy hotels) and amenities. This means a guest will rather choose a hotel with a swimming pool, gym, or spa than a hotel without one.
This is because hotel amenities like pools allow travellers and guests to relax, exercise, cool off, and enjoy their vacation or business travel at its finest.
Why Book a Hotel with a Swimming Pool?
Booking a hotel with a swimming pool is not about luxury; it’s a relief and a tool for escapism from stress, as well as the afternoon heat of the day’s travel. The availability of this alone impacts guest experience, enhances the hotel’s image and makes travellers prone to book a hotel with it because of the following benefits:
Relaxation & Stress Relief
One of the reasons for staying at such a hotel is to relax, unwind, and steam off stress. Travelling from one point to the other can stress our physical and psychological health, and swimming is one of the best ways to reduce fatigue and seek relief from jet lag or long journeys.
Health & Fitness
Swimming also helps regulate the body’s clock and promote rest, which in turn helps promote sleep. It is also a great workout by aiding your body to wade against the resistance of the water. It also helps build endurance, muscle strength, and cardiovascular fitness.
Cool Off in Hot Weather
It is also the best way to enjoy poolside relaxation and cool off in the hot weather after a long day of work to regulate the body temperature.
The Relaxation and Stress Relief Factor
When checking whether to book a hotel, the first thing most people look for is availability and access to the hotel’s pool facilities. If the hotel has one, and if they can use it with their suite package due to the benefits it gives.
And here is how a pool facility does that:
- Physical Unwinding: Swimming is known for its ability to alleviate and improve physical tension. The water helps to reduce strain on joints and muscles. It also aids the flexibility of the body for easing movement and ensuring the release of endorphins.
- Mental Benefits: The focus on breathing and its rhythm helps to reduce anxiety and aids your mind in not dwelling on toxic thoughts and every day worries. It also eases meditation with the silence and serenity it brings.
- Enhances Overall Sleep Quality: Taking a swim before bed helps regulate the whole body. This makes sure the periods of sleep are more restful and deep.
Family-Friendly Fun and Safety
A family-friendly pool hotel provides fun for the whole family, especially the children. It brings the whole family together to have a good time and enjoy pool relaxation while also ensuring that parents provide close supervision of their children.
Some hotels offer built-in entertainment for kids, like Marco Polo, Sharks and Minnows, or a shallow pool for kids to swim and have fun. They also provide supervised fun for kids and provide lifeguards.
Families can also participate in games like Poolside Movie Night, Poolside Karaoke, Poolside Yoga, Water Balloon Toss, and Scavenger Hunt. This allows the whole family to bond, as it is usually a perfect activity to end the day of touring around to ensure everyone is revitalised for the next day.
In participating in all these fun activities, safety must be a priority, especially when it involves kids. There should be a life vest for kids, a parent on standby for water watch, and also ensure that it is an activity without alcohol to avoid impaired judgment and reaction time from the parents.
Health, Fitness, and Wellness Benefits of Swimming
Swimming is beneficial to our health and wellness, and it is one of the exercises that almost anyone can opt for, if they are not gym buffs or ready to pay extra fees for another form of exercise.
As a traveller, these are some of the benefits of swimming that you can always enjoy from a hotel with a pool facility.
- It improves Cardiovascular Health: Travelling for a prolonged time in a plane or by road transport without physical movement can increase the risk of blood clots. Apart from that, the decline of oxygen on an airplane at high altitudes can also place some stress on the cardiovascular system. These travel risks are common but can also be improved while still travelling by ensuring one’s place of stay is a hotel with a swimming pool to relax. This helps to reduce heart rate, lowers blood pressure, and improves the efficiency of the heart muscle.
- Aids Mental Clarity: As a corporate traveller who is into business and other official assignments, a hotel with a swimming pool cannot be substituted for another thing, and it is highly recommended. Swimming helps reduce endorphins, which helps elevate the mood, calm the brain, and reduce anxiety.
- Body Balance and Flexibility: Swimming enhances body flexibility by reducing tension around our joints, ensuring they balance and posture well over time.
- Prompts Hydration: Swimming, like every other exercise, prompts you to always take water and stay hydrated all the time. This results in staying aware and mindfully conscious at all times.
Making the Most of Summer Vacations
It is always encouraged to make time for rest, vacation, staycation, or anything that can take you away from the busyness of every day and allow you to connect with yourself, others, and the world around you.
The step to having such a time and making the most of it is, firstly, to plan for it and around it. Ensure you know what the year brings, or at least estimate it, and map out a few weeks that you can take off for vacation. It is not a must for it to be a summer vacation in another country; it might just be a small island vacation with friends or by yourself.
No matter the shape your vacation may take, these are three tips to use to make the most of it:
- Ensure you travel smartly and not necessarily far away. Please make an effort to be intentional and do something that connects with you for you to enjoy it.
- Have plans to learn something new; it might be how to detox, swim, paint, play an indoor game, or learn a new language.
- Ensure you do not fill the vacation plan with a lot of activities, and also have a plan to sleep and rest. This can be achieved easily by booking a place to stay with a hotel spa and pool facilities.
- Be spontaneous: Despite prior planning, you can also let the vacation take the wheel and show you what it can offer beyond a rigid vacation plan.
A Social and Entertaining Hotspot
A swimming pool is more than just an exercise spot; it is also a place for social gatherings and entertainment. Most hotel pools have side lounges and rooftop views that are perfect for group cocktails and date nights.
This can provide an avenue for friends, families, and companies to socialise, have a drink, a night out, play group games, listen to light music, and also do dances without going to an outside club. Pool events like this are intimate and cosy.
Hotels also have spa rooms alongside their pool spot, which opens the opportunity for friends and lovers to have spa dates/time together, creating a lasting memory for them.
Some hotels also offer by-the-pool dinners, brunch, barbeque, grills, and mocktails. This is often coupled with an aesthetic structure to offer a beautiful family night or romantic dinners.
Apart from the aforementioned, pool games are also created around the facilities to provide long-staying travellers with fun activities throughout their stay.
Luxury and Competitive Edge for Hotels
These days, hotel pool amenities are not a random addition to hotels; they are a must because of the strategic positions they offer hotels, attracting guests from all strata, like tourists, corporate travelers, visitors, and families.
A stylish and clean pool is used as a marketing instrument by hotels, and they are most times the most photographed part of hotels to depict that such hotels are big on aesthetics to attract guest who loves structural beauty.
They also symbolise luxury and prestige. A hotel with spa and pool facilities shows that it is beyond making rooms available but also provides other add-ons. And if they can provide well-furnished pool facilities, that means their general service is top-notch.
The availability of a pool facility also increases the events around the hotels, as people tend to host gatherings around pools, such as pool parties, music nights, and dinners. This also directly contributes to the hotel’s business by attracting more guests and boosting word-of-mouth referrals.
How do hotels keep their pools clean
Pool facilities, like every other part of a hotel, need to be maintained and kept in proper condition. As it has proved to be an important part of the hotel, there must be a special focus on it to keep it in a position where it will always serve its purpose.
In keeping a pool clean, these are some of the hotel pool maintenance standards to follow to ensure the standard is met.
- Water Testing: Hotels should ensure the pool water is tested regularly using water testing kits, and they should ensure that the pH, chlorine, and alkalinity levels of the pool are checked at times. This will ensure the water is balanced and free from bacteria.
- Filtering, Skimming, & Vacuuming: This process can be done both manually and with the use of a machine. Hotels should ensure their water is free from leaves, insects, or debris. And also to ensure dirts are removed from the wall of the pool.
- Pool and Hygiene Policies: Hotels with pool watchers should always be ready to educate guests on the hygiene rules behind using the pool. Rules like encouraging showers before swimming and the usage of a clean towel. This can also be achieved through signs and informing parents to encourage their children to follow them.
Conclusion
Hotels with pool facilities have a special type of appeal towards guests; they offer extra events to make stays more interesting and also serve as a point of attraction to attract tourists and travellers.
Aside from these, most travellers and visitors often opt for a hotel with a swimming pool because of the health and wellness benefits swimming provides them. It helps to relax, to cool off, and to revitalise after a long day. It also aids mental balance and enhances the quality of sleep, which most travellers and tourists want while travelling.
To enjoy this, you can explore our hotel facilities and book accommodation with us to unlock this experience.