WHILE on holiday in Barcelona with her ma last month, Laura Caddick had seen Torre Agbar a lot of folk tooling around on red-and-white bicycles. But the bikes that she saw everywhere – part of the town’s bicycle-sharing program – were to be used by local residents only. Torre Agbar

luckily , Ms. Caddick’s hotel, ME Barcelona, had many bicycles for guests. ‘We rode down to the beach, then to the port and up to the Ramblas, stopping for drinks and lunch along the way,’ claimed Ms. Caddick, a sports-wear merchandiser from Liverpool, England. She and her mother each paid 20 euros, or $26.40 at $1.32 to the Euro Buck, to rent the bikes for four hours and felt they saw more of Barcelona than theywould had they taken the Metro from their hotel. ‘We felt we were experiencing the city from a more local point of view.’

recently, from Paris to Rome, new urban cycling lanes and public bike-sharing programs have been gaining in popularity. And while some travelers arenot able to hook into all of the cycling opportunities – in Paris, for example, the check-out meters for the Vlib’, a public bicycle-rental program, will not accept most American credit cards ( they lack a critical microchip ) – there are several hostels that offer guests use of bikes for a tiny fee or no cost in any way.

‘It’s become a freshly discovered way for hotels to show their greenness,’ announced Jonathan Barsky, VP for research at Market Metrix, which gauges customer satisfaction in hospitality companies.

The bikes, which are generally upright models, have proved to be preferred, especially among holidaying guests, though business travelers have been known to cycle to an appointment, according to many hostels

The Hotel Gates in Berlin, which introduced twelve red bikes last May, making them available to guests without charge, has just ordered four more bikes for the summer season

‘Sometimes the guests ask for a bike, and they’re all gone,’ said Kirsten Kurbjuhn, the general manager, adding that more than 60 % of the guests who fill out the hotel’s customer-feedback questionnaire say the bikes are’a highly valuable service,’ and twenty percent say they are one of the explanations they selected the hotel.

Astrid Boh, a management consultant from Frankfurt who prepared a room at the Hotel Gates for a business trip at the end of March, did not know about the bikes before her arrival. But after hearing about them at the reception desk, she was glad she had taken a taxi from the airfield rather than leasing avehicle.Torre Agbar.

‘Parking is a challenge in Berlin,’ said Ms. Boh, who pedaled to a business meeting, shops and even out to dinner at night. ‘I liked being able to get somewhere fast and get some exercise at the same time.’

Some hotels organize with nearby bicycle shops to have bikes available for guests. A day’s use of a bike is included in the Green, Greener, Berlin package at the Mvenpick Hotel Berlin, which leases the bikes from a local company. The package also includes bath salts, presumably for calming sore muscles after astrenuous outing.

But increasingly hostels are making an investment in their own fleets – and picking models that strengthen the identity of the hotel.

In August, Le Meurice, a Parisian hotel that occupies an 1835 palace across from the Tuileries, displayed 5 retro-style bikes in the blue-green shade of the oxidized copper rooftops of the town, with matching helmets and front baskets emblazoned with the hotel’s gold logo. Yank and Brit guests in their 30s tend to be the most enthusiastic customers, according to the hotel ; Le Meurice’s sister hotel, the plaza Athne, chose zippy red bikes with panniers.

At the Victoria-Jungfrau Grand Hotel & Spa in Interlaken in the Swiss Alps, guests can check out Scott mountain bikes – the same model that the Liverpool soccer Club, which made use of the hotel as its coaching base for the last two summers, rode to get to and from soccer practice, pedaling in their red-and-black coaching shorts and jerseys while fans lined their trail.

Staff members at the ME Barcelona, part of the Sol Meli hotel chain, visited many bike shops before settling on the silvery fold-up bikes that were introduced in September at the hotel, housed in a modernist tower clad in anodized aluminum.

‘We always love to be on the edge of technology,’ expounded Pete Zudyk, vice president for brand creativity and communication for Sol Meli.

of course, some hostels have given bikes for several years. The Hotel Hassler in Rome has had them for twenty years, according to Vivian Barsanti, the media and promoting coordinator.

In bike-happy Copenhagen, which has special miniature traffic lights for bicyclists and clearly marked cycling lanes, bicycles have for a while been a standard hotel offering.

.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!